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■ The 

AMIABLE CRIMES 
OF DIRK MEMLING 


BY 


RUPERT HUGHES 


w 

AUTHOR OF “excuse ME, “MRS. BUDLONG’S 
CHRISTMAS PRESENTS,” ETC. 



ILLUSTRATED 


w' 


NEW YORK AND LONDON 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1913 


COPYMGHT, 19x3, BY 

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 


Copyright, 1910, 1911, 1912, by Street and Sjoth 


Printed in the United States of America 



CONTENTS 


CHAFTEB PAGE 


I. 

Kidnapping a Monument 


1 

II. 

The Partners Part 


13 

III. 

A Samaritan Crime . 


16 

IV. 

Quixote and Panza . 


19 

V. 

The Scandal of St. George . 


. 22 

VI. 

The General Becomes a Nymph 


28 

VII. 

The Sacrifice 


. 33 

VIII. 

A Child Reclaimed . 


36 

IX. 

“Why Don^t We?’* . 


39 

X. 

“Gold-tooth” and “Short-arm” 


43 

XI. 

The Moving-picture Movement 


50 

XII. 

Delilah Finds a Samson . 


56 

XIII. 

An Intermezzo 


64 

XIV. 

The Sound-proof Room . 


. 67 

XV. 

The Great Cinematographic Crime 

. 70 

XVI. 

“A Good Thief a Good Salesman 

» 

. 75 

XVII. 

The Honor of a Thief . 


. 79 

XVIII. 

Half a Rug .... 


84 

XIX. 

What Next? .... 


92 

XX. 

An Unexpected Encounter . 


. 95 

XXI. 

The Disappearing Widower . 


. 106 

XXII. 

A Rehearsal for a New Role 


. Ill 

XXIII. 

Coals to Newcastle 


. 118 

XXIV. 

Love Comes in at the Door . 


. 123 

XXV. 

The Talented Omnibus . 


. 127 

XXVI. 

The Violinless Violinist 


. 133 


Contents 


XXVII. 
XXVIII. 
XXIX. 
XXX. 
XXXI. 
XXXII. 
XXXIII. 
XXXIV. 
XXXV. 
XXXVI. 
XXXVII. 
XXXVIII. 
XXXIX. 
XL. 
XLI. 
XLII. 
XLIII. 
XLIV. 
XLV. 
XLVI. 
XLVII. 
XL VIII. 
XLIX. 
L. 
LI. 
LII. 
LIII. 
LIV. 
LV. 
LVI. 
LVII. 
LVIIL 


Twixt Fiddledum and Fiddledee . 

A Raid on the Metropolitan Museum 
The Boat-missers . 

The Great Van Veen Again . 
*‘Gold-tooth'' Lesher Again . 

The Bomb Explodes 
Through the Vacuum Cleaner 

Hungry 

The One Sure Talisman 
The Taxi-pirate 
The Marble-man from Palatka 
The Great Hill-Climbing Contest 
The Dynamite Shed 
Ben Hur in a Motor Race 
The Wholesale Automoburglary 
The Ready Anonymous Letter Writer . 
A Slump in Hopes Preferred 
Fritz the Pfiffig . 

A Duel with Strubel . 

The Angel on the Front Cloud 

“At Sixes” 

“And Sevens” . 


The Lost is Partly Found 
Coffee and Rolls . 

Strubel at Bay 
Nellie Discovers France 
On to Paris .... 

Mussoo DE VoiVANG . 

In the Forest of Fontainebleau 
Mussoo Ornery 
The Irony of Fame 
The Parish Policeman Makes an Arrest 


140 

148 

159 

163 

175 

178 

182 

187 

192 

194 

202 

206 

210 

212 

215 

221 

225 

229 

240 

247 

252 

259 

268 

271 

273 

278 

283 

287 

295 

301 

306 

309 


Contents 


CHAPTEB 

LIX. 

The Sun-burnt Nymph . 


PAGE 

. 311 

LX. 

Ignominious Flight 


. 317 

LXI. 

The Miracle .... 


. 319 

LXIL 

James G. Tice, L.C.B.B.M. • 


. 321 

LXIII. 

The Tenacious Customer 


. 326 

LXIV. 

A Confidential Auctioneer . 


. 332 

LXV. 

Home Again .... 


. 335 



) 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 

PAGE 

** *I’m so glad you like me* . . . Frontispiece 

“Waupeka County never got General Pulsifer back, even 

in replica** ........ 14 

*‘She got the fiddle free without delay** . . . .154 
** ‘You come with me. I*ve got a gun here* ** . . .214 




THE AMIABLE CRIMES 
OF DIRK MEMLING 


CHAPTER I 


KIDNAPPING A MONUMENT 



LONE, erect, unflinching, the statue kept watch from 


its square pedestal on a barren mound in a bleak, 
blizzard-swept field. It was evidently the memorial of 
some soldier, for the figure leaned upon a sword, and faced 
the driven sleet as he must have faced the singing bullets 
in his great day — whenever that was, whoever he was. 
The ice that varnished the marble, the snow that scumbled 
the accouterment, and the haze of storm prevented a de- 
cision as to which of our many wars had made him. 

When the limited express shot past, losing time on the 
squealing rails where the frosty wheels failed to grip, the 
lonely monument caught the eye of the two thieves loung- 
ing in the armchairs of the library car. 

They were making a neat escape from an exquisite 
bit of technique they had just displayed in the mid- west. 
They were flush and content, and their last worry was the 
gantlet of detectives at the Grand Central Station. 

One of the other passengers, who studied people’s 
faces and played at being a phrenologist, was musing on 
them through his smoke rings. Like all physiogno- 


1 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

maniacs he went wrong on essentials, but occasionally 
made a happy guess at unimportant details. He never 
dreamed that these men were professional criminals, but 
he set down the short one as a race-track enthusiast, the 
long one as an artist of some sort. And he wondered at 
their incongruous companionship. 

The small, wiry, loudly dressed member of the firm 
was, indeed, one whose highest ambition was to be called a 
dead-game sport. But he was moved, by the plight of the 
statue, to a splurge of sentiment. 

“Cheese, but dat moniment looks cold out dere. Glad 
I ain’t got his job. Good t’ing fer him he’s on’y marble.’’ 

The long, sinuous thief, with careless refinement in his 
clothes, his voice, his manner, answered dreamily: 

“Don’t think that he doesn’t suffer just because he’s 
marble. It always breaks my heart to see a statue out in 
the cold. There ought to be a Society for the Prevention 
of Cruelty to Inanimates. And that seems to be a fairly 
decent piece of work, too. Perhaps it’s the haze and the 
sunset, but it has a certain something about it. Wonder 
who made it.” 

“You can soich me. Here comes de conductor. Ast 
him.” 

“Did a train conductor ever know anything about the 
sights along the line.? But you might ask him the name 
of the next town, and if the train stops there.” 

The phrase “you might” was spoken in the tone of a 
kindly master to an old servant. The other man always 
felt it, but it amused him so much that he never resented 
it. He usually obeyed to save argument and to keep from 
being told that it was all for his own good. 

As the conductor passed, he put out an ingenious 
right hand that might have taken the conductor’s precise 

2 


Kidnapping a Monument 

watch without disturbing him; but the fingers merely de- 
tained him. 

“Say, cap, where are we at, about now?” 

The conductor bent to look through the window for a 
landmark : 

“Just coming into Waupeka.” 

The dreamer murmured: 

“Waupeka? Isn’t that where a battle was fought 
during the Revolution?” 

“I believe I did hear something about something of 
the kind.” 

The dreamer lifted a hand of languid dismay at such 
indifferent ignorance; then he nodded to his companion, 
who obediently asked the prescribed question: 

“Say, cap, do we stop dere?” 

With all the injured pride of a rear admiral treated 
as a scow skipper, the conductor growled: 

“Stop at Waupeka! Whattaya think this is.'* — a milk 
train?” 

And he stalked on. The little fellow whined: 

“You let me in fer dat one he handed me!” 

The dreamer smiled. “You might run after him and 
say, ‘Of course, this isn’t a milk train, conductor — a milk 
train wouldn’t dare be three hours late and keep the cows 
waiting.’ ” 

The little one stared in awe : “Cheese, I wisht I could 
t’ink up dem fly comebacks like you can. Why didn’ you 
spring it?” 

“He is only a conductor. He would not have under- 
stood.” 

But the conductor and his pride had a fall. Just as 
he reached the end of the car, the brakes were jammed so 
hard that he came hurtling down the aisle with all limbs 

3 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

flying. The passengers and their chairs followed him in 
a human avalanche to the lounge seat. 

Bruised and bewildered, they picked their own legs 
and arms out of the huddle, and realized that the train 
was stopping as suddenly as if the engine had stubbed its 
toe. They forgot their black-and-blue spots in their grat- 
itude at an evident escape from disaster. In the thick 
air, the engineer had nearly run past a signal set to pro- 
tect an express in the block ahead, held up by a stalled 
freight just ahead of it. 

Several of the passengers opened the vestibule doors 
and dropped to the ground, the two thieves among them. 
The little one looked ahead to learn the cause of the de- 
lay. The tall one turned to stare back at the statue, now 
just visible on the crimson horizon, fronting the dull sun 
like a little finger thrust into a red bubble. 

The artist called the sport to one side with an impor- 
tant nod. “Herman,” he said, and Herman knew it meant 
something, for when Mr. Memling was in a frivolous 
mood he called his light-fingered partner “Hermes,” a 
mythological tribute both to the adeptness of his friend, 
and to the god of theft and other forms of commerce. 

The police called Herman, “Slinky” Brown, alias 
Green, alias White, et cetera. But they did not caU Mr. 
Memling at all, for they did not know him, and it was 
only the relaxed caution of recent triumph that led him to 
appear in Slinky’s society on this train. 

“Herman,” said Mr. Memling, “I think we’ll stop off 
here in Waupeka.” 

“Why’n’ell should we.?” 

“In the first place, I want to have a look at that statue. 
In the second, it would be just as well for us not to roll 
into the Grand Central on this train. We’ll be seen, 

4 


Kidnapping a Monument 

surely, and they might connect us with our latest chef 
d’oeuvre.” 

For the sake of self-respect, Slinky usually pretended 
to ponder before he yielded: 

“As fer de moniment, it don’t int’res’ me; but your 
secon’ reason does you proud.” 

“Thanks. Approbation from Sir Herman Stanley is 
approbation indeed.” 

Slinky wrinkled his face like a cogitating ape’s, and 
gasped : 

“What from who is what.'”’ 

“Never mind. But would you be good enough to get 
the suit cases.?” 

Slinky always obeyed, but always with bad grace to 
prove his equality. 

“Well, of all the noive I ever hoid of — oh, all right!” 
And he clambered into the car and clambered out with the 
suit cases. He offered Memling his, but Memling said: 

“I think, Herman, that you will balance better if you 
carry both of them.” 

They edged along the tie ends to the head of the train 
and on to the station platform some distance ahead. Most 
of the yeomanry were there gaping at the limited which 
had never honored Waupeka thus before. Memling said 
to a bus driver : 

“I hate to tear you away, but would you take us to 
Waupeka’s best hotel — or the least offensive one.?” 

The driver took them to the Stebbins House. They 
groaned to meet it. They had risked life and liberty for 
the swag they had with them, and they had dreamed of 
Ritz-Carltonian luxuries. But discretion counseled a 
further postponement of Nirvana. 

It was too late to visit the statue, and the Waupekans 

5 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

did not seem worthy of craft of their quality, so, to kill a 
dragging evening, they went innocently to a moving pic- 
ture palace. 

This was the very place where Memling got the in- 
spiration for the most elaborate of their triumphs in 
property transfer, the great cinematographic — but that 
can wait. 

During the night the blizzard relented, and by the 
time the innocents were abroad, the sun had been at work 
for some hours upon the snow, and the balmy air had a 
lying promise of spring. 

When Memling resolved to drive out to the statue, 
Slinky decided to go also. Even an art pilgrimage was 
better than being left alone in Waupeka. 

Meanwhile, by questioning Mr. Stebbins, Memling had 
learned something of the neglected hero on the lonesome 
pedestal. 

The statue was in memory of General Pulsifer, and 
General Pulsifer was an old farmer who had gathered his 
neighbors into a FalstafF’s army, to hamper General Bur- 
goyne when he came down to Saratoga during the wet fall 
of Seventeen Seventy-Seven. 

The one standard of admission to the Pulsiferiaii 
legion was the ability to knock a squirrel off a rail at 
eighty yards. That was good shooting for a flintlock, and 
the grangers rarely missed a red coat as they straggled 
along the side lines. 

Eventually a detachment of size was detailed by Bur- 
goyne to chase the irritating mob across the horizon. 
General Pulsifer Jured the regulars through rough stubble 
to the field where the statue now stood and where a forest 
then flourished. 

There he dug some ditches during the night, and the 

6 


Kidnapping a Monument 

next morning presented the British with what they found 
it so hard to get out of our forefathers — a stand-up bat- 
tle. The squirrel experts knocked His Majesty’s men 
over like ninepins, and left only enough of them alive to 
run back and make Burgoyne feel a little more spooky in 
the wilderness. 

By some accident during^^the Waupeka Waterloo, a 
shot aimed at somebody else by a homesick British youth, 
who had been forced to enlist, hit General Pulsifer in the 
groin, and floored him. But he crawled to his knees, and 
leaning against a friendly oak, held himself together with 
difficulty and continued in command. 

This was the stout old soul to whom Waupeka had 
erected a well-earned statue, under the eloquence of some 
patriotic revivalist preaching local pride. Memling 
warmed to the legend so cordially that he looked forward 
to the statue with double favor. 

After a dinner-like breakfast he and Slinky hired the 
article known as a “horsanbuggy” from the “livery stable” 
where livery had never been stabled. 

As they tried in vain to annoy the nag out of a gentle 
jog. Slinky said: 

“I wonder what de guy dat owns dis hornless ox would 
t’ink if he reelized he’d gave his proputty to a coupla — 
well, to us. And he didn’ even ast for his dollar and a 
half in advance.” 

“He probably realized that we could not get far with 
this snail.” 

“Dat’s right, dey could ketch us in a canal boat. Look 
at him; he t’inks he’s trottin’ in his sleep. He acts like 
he’d been doped for a slow race.” 

But eventually even that horse got them to the statue. 
As Memling had glimpsed its shadowy mass from the 

7 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

train, it had seemed to have meaning and composition, 
and all the mysterious poetry of line and mass that gives 
sculpture life. But when he confronted the actual effigy 
he realized that it was in the worst school of American 
sculpture at its worst. The snow had melted, leaving its 
crudities naked to the critical eye. Even Herman felt the 
wretchedness of it. 

“Looks like it was did wit’ a axe,” he said. 

“No, Herman, no. If it had been done with an axe, 
it would have shown a certain breadth of handling. It 
looks as if it had been done with a crochet hook or the 
weapons of a manicure. The artist — God save the mark 
— ^has worked out the buttonholes and the braid with per- 
fect detail; the sword and the boots are masterpieces of 
accuracy, but there is no life in the sword, and there are 
no feet in the boots. There’s no soul in the body, no 
brains behind the eyes. 

“He’s got him at parade rest according to Civil War 
tactics, instead of — why didn’t the idiot seize his oppor- 
tunity.? Lord, if they had given me that commission I’d 
have given them a Yankee classic — something racial — an 
old homy-faced granger, leaning against a tree, and grip- 
ping his wounded belly with one hand and waving an 
order with the other. Think of his face — ^his hard, old 
mouth twisted with pain, and his eyes full of the joy of 
Leonidas. What a pity that our American heroes have 
neither great poets nor great sculptors to celebrate them. 
Oh, it’s too bad ! The statue hurts me, Herman ; it hurts 
me!” 

“It hoits me, too,” said Herman, “but I don’t see what 
we’re goin’ to do to cure it — except to drive on.” 

“Do you know, Herman, that such a statue is more 
immoral than all the nudities of Greece? Think what a 

8 


Kidnapping a Monument 

bad educational effect it has on the poor ignorant farm- 
ers who pass by ! They think it’s art, and they go through 
life with false standards, chromo ideals, cigar-Indian 
aesthetics. It’s awful, Herman; it’s awful.” 

“Well, now dat we agree on dat, let’s go back. The 
bot’ of me feet is froze.” 

But Memling was deeply stirred. 

“It seems a shame to drive off and leave it there. I’ve 
sometimes thought, Herman, that it is my duty to go 
about the world destroying bad statuary. Iconoclasm 
was once a religion, but the old bigots broke the good 
statues. How noble a work to purge the world of its 
bad art!” 

“It’d be a life job, all right. But — ^be dat as it may, 
me feet is toinin’ to marble, and seein’ as how we can’t 
take de old guy away in de back of de buggy, let’s get 
t’hell out of here.” 

“And it’s such a beautiful piece of marble, too, 
Herman. Think what Pheidias could have done with 
that!” 

“Well, seein’ as how you ain’t Fido — supposin’ — git- 
tap, Dobbin.” 

“Wait!” cried Memling, seizing the lines. “I wonder 
if — why, it’s not impossible in the least.” 

“Say, you ain’t finkin’ of beginnin’ dat poijury woik 
here, are you.'^” 

“Why not.^ I should feel that it would be an atone- 
ment for any little faults we may have committed else- 
where. This region is practically deserted — not a farm- 
house in sight — we could take it down and nobody would 
miss it.” 

“Well, of all de — say, are you bughouse or just plain 
crazy.?” 


9 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


“We could sell the marble for something, too — 
enough, anyway, to repay us for our trouble.” 

This idea interested Herman. 

“How much would a chunk of marble dat size set you 
back, if you was to buy it new.?” 

“Before it was mutilated into this atrocity, it was 
worth probably six hundred dollars. The artist probably 
got six thousand. He ought to have got six years.” 

“I know a marble-yard man dat would steal a broken 
column from his own mudder’s grave for a profit. We 
might sell it to him, and he could toin it into a weeping 
angel by just screwin’ on a coupla wings.” 

“Not a bad idea, Herman — for you.” 

“T’anks for de bokay. But, how’d we git it down? It 
must weigh sumpin’.” 

“Not more than a thousand or twelve hundred 
pounds.” 

“Is dat all? Well, just reach up and pick it off de 
shelf — unless you happen to have a young derrick in your 
inside pocket.” 

“Not at all necessary. Don’t you remember how our 
forefathers pulled down the statue of King George in 
Bowling Green.” 

“I wasn’ dere at de time. But I guess dey didn’t mind 
how he looked when he lit.” 

“No, they melted him up into bullets.” 

“Dey melted marble.? — ^whatcha givin’ us.?” 

“George was made of lead, Hermes !” 

“Oh! Well, how you goin’ to pull His Nibs off his 
poich wit’out crackin’ him into splinters? Me friend 
don’t want marble dust. He don’t run no sody fountain ; 
he runs a bargain shop for widders and widderers. He’d 
have to have dis statute all in one piece.” 

10 


Kidnapping a Monument 

“Nothing simpler. We could just toss a rope round 
his neck and pull him over into a wagon loaded with hay.” 

“We can manatch de rope, all right, all right, but 
where you goin’ to get de hay wagon.?” 

“I was thinking you might steal me one.” 

“I see — I might steal it.” 

“Exactly. This is a rural neighborhood. We passed 
a number of commodious barns on our way out. All you 
have to do is to go to one of them, climb into a hayloft, 
pitch a load down into a wagon, and bring it along.” 

“Oh, I just bring it along, eh?” 

“Well, you might borrow a pair of horses while you’re 
at it.” 

“Fine!” 

“We’ll go back and have dinner — or supper — at the 
Stebbins-Astoria, and after dark you can fetch the hay 
wagon. I will provide the rope and meet you here. And, 
Herman, you’d better arrange for a full moon.” 

“Sure! Anyt’ing else, your madge?” 

“That will be all, I think. And now let us spin back 
to the garage, Herman.” 

When at last they neared Waupeka again they saw 
ahead of them a small farmhouse with a magnificent barn. 
The man who owned it was just driving into the stable 
yard a jouncing wagon drawn by a team of stout and 
fuzzy horses. 

“That’s a good-looking pair, Herman. You might 
take them. The old villain deserves to lose them, because 
he keeps his family in a hovel, and his horses in a Queen 
Anne mansion.” 

Herman answered with a coachman’s salute of obedi- 
ence. When they had returned their own equipage to the 
livery stable and paid for it, and were walking to the 

11 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


hotel, Herman stopped on the sidewalk and kicked one 
congealed foot with the other. 

‘‘Say, milord, what you goin’ to do wit’ de moniment 
when we get it.? You can’t stuff it in yer money belt. 
We can’t take it straight to me friend.” 

“I had planned for all that, Herman. By nine o’clock 
the statue will be reposing on the hay wagon. By ten we 
shall be enjoying a cross-country drive in the moonlight. 
By daybreak we shall be driving into Wadhamsville-on- 
Hudson. The statue will be neatly packed in a tarpaulin, 
padded with hay, the rest of the hay will be left en route. 
We drive to the wharf and ask the man to ship this block 
of marble from our new quarry to New York. It will be 
delivered by a freight boat at a North River slip, whence 
it will be carted to my studio, and set up there by the 
genial and accommodating stevedores. I will unpack it 
myself, with your assistance — no, I think you had better 
not come to the studio for a few weeks. Nellie will help 
me remove the canvas and the straw. At my leisure I can 
alter the statue beyond identification with a few taps of 
my trusty chisel. It wiU then be safe to intrust to your 
friend with the marble yard. Is it all clear, Herman ?” 

“I guess I git you. So it’s us for an all-night drive, 
eh? I guess I’ll swipe a coupla extra overcoats I seen 
hangin’ outside de Parisian Emporium.” 

“A good idea. Meanwhile, I will endeavor to purchase 
a roll of heavy muslin or canvas. Perhaps I can buy a 
small tent.” 

“Buy it? You always wanta buy yer own supplies, 
but you leave me git mine any old how.” 

“Naturally, Herman. Your general manner is such that 
if you were seen buying something, people would be suspi- 
cious of you at once. If you stole it, they’d never notice. 

12 


The Partners Part 


As for me — even if I had Nellie’s shoplifter’s raglan on, it 
would be hard to conceal a tent about my slender form 
without attracting the attention of even a floorwalker. 
But everybody knows how easy it is to purloin a team of 
horses and a mere wagon. It is constantly being done. 
Don’t whine, Herman, and don’t shirk.” 

“If I ever shoiked anyt’ing, me name’s not Hoiman.” 

“Bravely said. Now let us hasten to the hotel before 
the lukewarm biscuits and apple sauce are all devoured by 
the rude yokels who think that General Pulsifer is a work 
of art. They will not appreciate our industry in their 
cause, Herman, but when was a philanthropist ever ap- 
preciated? Are people grateful to Carnegie when he 
forces good literature on them? No. And they will not 
be grateful to us for relieving them of a malformation in 
marble. But — we shall have done our duty.” 

“You got such a way o’ provin’ every t’ing you wanta 
do is your dooty, dat sometimes I t’ink you got English 
blood in you.” 

“An Englishman and a sculptor at the same time? 
The slander is ridiculous, Herman. The Memlings are 
Flemish. There were great Memlings in Flanders when 
London was the Waupeka of Europe. But remember 
your promise never to dabble in art criticism, and after 
you have washed your hands, you may come in to supper.” 

CHAPTER H 
THE PARTNERS PART 

I F the farmers of Waupeka County had not practiced 
so consistently their precept of early-to-bed, one of 
them might not have lost his horses, his wagon, and his 

13 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

hay; the others might not have lost their single would-be 
work of art. 

The farmer got back his team eventually, after Her- 
man had delivered his heavy load at the Wadhamsville 
wharf, and driven out along a lonely country road, where 
he turned the horses loose and struck off across a neck of 
woods to another town. 

But Waupeka County never got General Pulsifer 
back, even in replica, and passengers on the trains that 
whiz past sometimes ask the conductor what the empty 
pedestal means. 

He never knows. 

But then they never know. 

During the long arctic night of the cross-country 
drive, Memling and Herman had decided — or at least 
Memling had decided, and Herman had growlingly agreed 
— that it would be discreeter for both of them not to be 
visible in New York at the same time. They had been 
seen together on the train ; they had been seen together in 
Waupeka. This rashness must be paid for by an inter- 
lude of that ascetic isolation which their stern profession 
sometimes requires. 

Memling advised, or decreed, that he would be the bet- 
ter one to go to New York. He could withdraw into his 
studio on West Tenth Street, in that region where even 
the policemen get lost on the crisscross streets. Herman 
could rusticate in some minor city. 

“Oh, of course, I gotta git de woist of it,” whined 
Herman. “It’s me fer Reubenville, and you fer gay Man- 
hattan.” 

“Really, Herman ; you are most unreasonable at times. 
Don’t I take all the risks Don’t I take the statue into 
my very home.?^” 


14 



“Waupeka County never got General Pulsifer back, even 
in replica” 






The Partners Part 

“Oh, all right; don’t try to prove you’re doin’ your 
dam’ dooty again. I’ll go. But don’t forgit to send me 
woid when I can come back.” 

“You shall have a telegram, Herman. And then you 
can come back and sell the disguised statue to your friend 
in the marble yard.” 

“And could I borry a little of our money off you to 
live on whilst I’m makin’ a noise like a toinip.?” 

“I’ll give you some of it,'of course; but I’ll keep most 
of it, so that you won’t spend it.” 

“And so dat you will. Well, seein’ as I took all the 
risk, and did all the swipin’, I hope you’ll be as generous 
as you can.” 

“You overlook one thing, Herman. You did, indeed, 
do the actual manual labor, and did it well — very well — 
but don’t forget that I planned it. You had never heard 
of the place when I told you my scheme.” 

“Oh, all right — call it a day’s woik and gimme de 
regular union rate for second-story woikers.” 

“Bear in mind, Herman, it is not that I believe in 
hoarding money up. Money is manufactured for circula- 
tion, not for the medallion cabinet or the portfolio of old 
prints.” 

“You don’t hafta tell me; you’re de woist spendt’rift 
on oit.” 

“I suppose you mean ‘on earth,’ Herman. If only 
you spoke more English and less New York!” 

“I’m a New Yorker, not a Englishman — but do I git 
me wages.?” 

“Certainly. I’d give you all of your share at once, 
but you spend your money so ungracefully, Herman; so 
very ungracefully.” 

“And don’t forgit de telegram.” 

15 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


“No, Herman.” 

“And you might prepay it — fer once.” 

“I certainly will, if I happen to have the change.” 

The city of St. George, where Slinky elected to hiber- 
nate, was enjoying the unusual luxury of a municipal 
scandal, in an effort to ape metropolitan dignities. It 
was just such a scandal, only in smaller degree, as that 
magnificent embezzlement which drove Dirk Memling from 
the art of sculpture to the art of crime. 


CHAPTER HI 

A SAMARITAN CRIME 

M emling was meant to be a statuary of the first 
quality, and he might have achieved his intention 
if certain political pickpockets had not robbed him of his 
birthright, and set his hand against the world. 

His fall dated from the famous scandal of the new 
Capitol of the State of Missianichusio — that colossal steal, 
crowded from public memory by later shames. Memling, 
recently graduated from the art schools, but already dis- 
tinguished by his skill and daring, had won the commission 
for a pediment group of twelve heroic figures. A slight 
advance payment sent him to Italy, where marble cutters 
are cheap; but the grafters on the capitol building-fund 
stole so much money, and were so entangled in investiga- 
tions, that Memling and his life work were forgotten, 
abandoned — marooned in the mid-ocean of incompletion. 

He had borrowed several thousands of dollars for his 
heavy expenses, and had been assured of more, when 
abruptly the commission was recalled, and he was left 

16 


A Samaritan Crime 

with a group of unpaid assistants, a pitiful array of half- 
finished marbles, and a magnificent bankruptcy. 

His easy-going financial ideas were not greatly dis- 
turbed by hopeless bankruptcy, but his tender heart 
grieved for his half-starved marble cutters, and he died a 
living death when he bade farewell to his statues, and 
locked them up in that Florentine shed, whose rent he 
could no longer pay. 

His statues seemed to cry after him, ‘‘Don’t leave us 
like this !” and he never forgot the finished and breathing 
heads hideously agonizing from the marble, the living 
hands thrust out from the shapeless blocks, as if a wanton 
god had called them from stone and suffocated them half- 
way out. 

When he flung away from that charnel of his dreams, 
he took with him a broken heart and a broken soul, with- 
out a sense of obligation to the world, especially to that 
country of his, where the politics is marked even less by 
artistic ambition than by probity. 

Memling had always pictured himself as coming home 
on some great ship with his family of marbles, and as 
being met at the pier by delegations. Instead, he sneaked 
back in the steerage of an immigrant hulk, packed like a 
floating sardine box. 

Among all the human cargo below decks he found only 
one American, and him a sneak thief, though Memling did 
not learn this till later. Their common experience of the 
justice of the world, its mercy, and its general honesty, 
brought them together. 

Memling had come aboard with little cash and few 
cigarettes. He endured the short rations, but the to- 
bacco famine made him peevish. 

Slinky, who had a good heart, so far as it beat, and 

17 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

whose tears were as facile as his oaths, was dreadfully dis- 
tressed at his companion’s plight. One rough morning 
he said: 

“Say, Bo, you’re soitan’y in bad. You need dough. 
I ain’t got any to lend you, but I’ll git you some.” 

“Where said Memling innocently. 

“Don’t let dat worry you,” said Slinky. 

When the ship’s doctor came through the steerage 
that day on a tour of inspection. Slinky edged up and 
wheezed : 

“Say, doc, I gotta awful boinin’ pain in me t’roat. 
Take a peek at it, will you?” 

As Memling idly watched the ship’s doctor peering 
down Slinky’s funnel, he saw, to his horror, that Slinky’s 
hands twitched and groped as if in protecting pain, but 
incidentally explored the doctor’s clothes and emerged 
with a wallet. 

The doctor growled: 

“Nothing the matter with you except too many cig- 
arettes. Cut ’em out.” 

As he turned away Slinky slipped the wallet to Mem- 
ling, who took it mechanically as one usually takes what 
is put in his palm. He concealed it from lack of courage 
to give it back. 

The doctor on his return to the first cabin missed his 
money, and went at once to reinspect the steerage. The 
Italians all looked like pirates. Black Handers, charter 
members of the Mafia. He accused all of them, and had 
them all searched. He even ordered Slinky searched. 
Slinky was bitterly hurt, but submitted. The doctor 
never dreamed of insulting the cultured Memling. Be- 
sides, Memling had not been near him. 

As soon as it was safe Memling went to Slinky and 

18 


Quixote and Panza 

commanded him to restore the wallet. If he could have 
done it without involving Slinky he would never have hesi- 
tated to return it himself. But Slinky’s intentions were 
pure and noble. And he looked so hurt at Memling’s 
ingratitude that the artist felt himself a brute. Slinky’s 
deed was Samaritan, an altruistic theft, and Memling 
could not stoop to the treachery of exposing him. 

Also, the first lesson of honor the schools teach us 
is that it is despicable to tattle. 


CHAPTER IV 

QUIXOTE AND PANZA 

M emling did not tell on Slinky. In fact, he began 
to lean on him, for Slinky was a man of resource. 
He was like certain of the higher lower animals whom in- 
tellect never touches, but who display at times amazing 
ingenuity and agility. 

If he could not get blood from a turnip, he could get 
a turnip from a blood, and then pawn the turnip. A 
pianist would have envied Slinky his pianissimo touch, a 
fox might have been jealous of his cleverness in doubling 
on the hounds. 

The sculptor and the thief gradually settled into a 
sort of vague partnership, and this was soon cemented by 
numberless complicities in crimes from whose consequences 
either might have escaped by turning State’s evidence. 

Having arrived at his new profession from the upper 
air, Memling was rather snobbish, and the native of the 
lower air humored him in it. 

Perhaps the thing that Memling liked most about 

19 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Slinky was the very ignorance that might have seemed to 
render them incompatible. 

“Hermes,” Memling would say, “the thing I like most 
about you is that you don’t know a blamed thing about 
art and you care the same. But if I ever hear you express 
an opinion of a painting or a statue, and it is a wrong 
opinion — as it’s sure to be — I’ll quit you cold. Some day, 
just for exercise, run up to Central Park and study the 
statues on the Mall. If you like one of them, never come 
back; if you can come home and look me in the eye and 
honestly say, ‘Bo, dey’re all rotten,’ I’ll take you to the 
Metropolitan Museum some Sunday and give you a sight 
of some real sculpture, most of it in plaster copies.” 

If Slinky ever went to the Mall he never confessed it. 
As for art exhibitions, he thought of them only as fertile 
ground for collecting souvenirs, as the visitors were 
mostly women with easily detachable pocketbooks. Mem- 
ling, however, forbade him to rob visitors to an art gal- 
lery. It seemed like discouraging the very training that 
America needed. 

But one day they dropped into a National Academy ' 
exhibition. Memling was so disgusted with the “papa- 
kiss-mamma” scenes, the landscapes with a quotation, the 
candy-box lovers, the dried-apple portraiture that make 
up the larger part of such an exhibition, that he turned 
to Slinky and said: 

“Herman, you may take all the purses you can get 
here.” 

For some years they operated in partnership, and 
made money enough together to rent a studio — for Mem- 
ling to occupy. This seemed rather unfair to Slinky, but 
Memling explained: 

“It’s all for your own good, Herman. Your past and 

20 


Quixote and Panza 

your face are among those few things that every police- 
man knows. You can’t change either. If I could re- 
model you into a pale imitation of respectability I’d do 
it gladly, but you would baffle even a beauty doctor. 
Don’t you see that if you come to the studio, if you are 
seen in public in my company, you are sure to be sus- 
pected, and I should be quarantined as one who has been 
exposed to infectious crime.? 

“A studio is an ideal place for storing the large ob- 
jects that we make our specialty. Somebody has to be 
caretaker, and much as I hate studio life, I consent to be 
a mere janitor, and allow you the freedom of the city. 
But you must never come near the studio except after 
dark. You will find, Herman, that, in this matter, as 
always, I am sacrificing myself.” 

“You are, like — well, all right; leave me lay.” 

So the studio was rented — one of those dwellings in the 
art colony in West Tenth Street, where two stories have 
been made into one for sculpture. 

The profession of sculpture, by the way, is an excel- 
lent side line for a thief, because sculptors are notoriously 
secretive, and frankly averse to showing their incomplete 
work even to friends ; curious looking persons visit them 
as models; bundles of odd sizes and great bulk go in and 
out mysteriously swathed, and as their commissions are 
always far in the future they are not expected to have any 
visible means of support. 

Memling’s studio was closed to his table-d’hote cronies 
on the plea of modesty or of caution; and nobody sus- 
pected him of being more than he confessed. When Gen- 
eral Pulsifer, bound and gagged, was toted ignominously 
into the studio, feet first, Memling went at him with a 
chisel. By gentle modifications of the features, and the 

SI 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirh Memling 

uniform, and by tooling the whole surface carefully and 
superficially, he accomplished what the retouchers at the 
photograph galleries accomplish — that is, he removed all 
semblance of likeness. 

But having converted General Pulsifer into an am- 
biguous effigy, Memling was struck suddenly with the in- 
finite possibilities of that block of marble, the infinitely 
various shapes it contained. And a great idea came to 
him. 


CHAPTER V 

THE SCANDAL OF ST. GEORGE 

M eanwhile slinky was trying to inure himself to 
the almost-metropolis of St. George. On the day 
of his arrival he noted with disgust that the job he and 
Memling had just pulled off was referred to in a scant 
teleparagraph, to the effect that the miscreants were in 
San Francisco under espionage; but a whole page was 
given over to the exposure of a local evil with headlines 
shouting a loud alarum: 

APPALLING EXPOSURE 


Santiago Monument Fund 
Looted by Grafters 


THE gazette’s GREAT SCOOP 
STATUE NEVER ERECTED 


Why? 


The Scandal of St. George 


A new editor had come to town, it seems, and casting 
about for some stimulant to a torpid circulation had un- 
earthed a sleeping sin and stirred it with a muck rake. 
Years before, at the close of the Spanish war, the public 
being at that time excited over the embalmed beef and 
other forgotten horrors, the people of St. George had 
watched the return of the regiment it had patriotically 
recruited and sent to the front. 

The regiment, the city’s pride, made up of the nicest 
young men in town, never got to the front; it was always 
in the middle rear distance. It never saw a Spaniard in 
arms, never fired a shot, yet when it returned from its 
three camping grounds, Chickamauga, Tampa, and Porto 
Rico, it looked as if it had been through the Moscow cam- 
paign. 

The girls who used to dance with the nice young men 
cried their eyes out at the sight of the scarecrows that 
limped home; and the mothers cried harder at the non- 
sight of the feed-crows left behind under the sod. 

Then some heartbroken father proposed the only sen- 
sible war monument ever devised, a memorial to those who 
never shot a shot, but died the death most soldiers die. It 
was taken up as the Typhoid Monument, and subscrip- 
tions poured in. The idea was so popular that the party 
in power made a municipal issue of it, voted a large sum 
of money to cap the subscriptions, and took charge of the 
fund — some twenty-five thousand dollars in all. 

And then the usual happened. Emotion having been 
exhaled, evaporated. People debated details of the 
monument till they tired of the subject. Some new horror 
fascinated the public. Even their own families got used 
to not seeing the dead men about. The fund was for- 
gotten. 


^3 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Now, the Republicrats had run the city of St. Georgt^ 
to their own liking for years. The Democans began to 
raise their heads. The Republicratic bosses, finding their 
funds low, borrowed from the monument fund, as one loots 
the baby’s savings bank when change is needed. Such 
borrowings, always taken with the best intentions, are 
never returned. The baby cannot count, and the bank 
cannot talk. 

So the Typhoid Monument fund grew smaller by de- 
grees and beautifully less till a hard-pressed alderman 
cleaned it out completely. Nobody was the wiser. Then 
that new editor from out of town began to snoop into 
other people’s business for the good of his own. 

He prepared his bombshell in secret and exploded it 
all over his front page one fine morning. It sent a tidal 
wave across every coffee cup in town, and on the breakfast 
tables of the Republicratic leaders, the soft-boiled eggs 
were putrified with astonishment. Such telephoning, such 
scurrying to backstair conferences, such consternation at 
the fact that incessant take-outs without even occasional 
put-ins had worn the twenty-five thousand dollars down to 
the decimal point. 

All the leaders said : “This is outrageous, and for the 
good of the party I would gladly dig down into my jeans 
— at any other time. Just now I’m particularly short of 
cash.” 

They all said that, and it was true. The Democan 
outsiders raised a yell of glee and prepared to lynch the 
inside rascals politically. The district attorney felt that 
he could save himself only by sliding several of his makers 
into the penitentiary. 

So devastated and dismayed were the political bosses 
that the only answer they could make to the newspaper 


The Scandal of St, George 

charge was a lofty refusal to “dignify with denial” an 
“odious slander” against the “fair name” of St. George. 

The new editor came back with larger headlines, and 
they called him a sensation-monger, a yellow journalist, a 
prevaricator worthy of “the shorter, uglier word.” 

This was the day that Slinky struck town. As he read 
of the deed of the city stepfathers, he felt all the repug- 
nance that one thief feels for another. 

The next day the charge was repeated, and the ques- 
tion reiterated: “Why was the statue never erected.'^ 
Echo answers. Why.?” 

And that day a great idea came to Slinky. 

He read the latest combings from the muck rake and 
noted that the head and front of the offending politicians 
was the uncrowned king. Boss Pedrick. At least he was 
chosen to bear the brunt of the attack. 

Slinky called upon Boss Pedrick and requested an 
interview. He was accused of being a reporter, but he 
denied it with such honest indignation that he was ad- 
mitted. 

Boss Pedrick, hitherto notorious for his gruff manner, 
sat idly at his desk, collapsed upon himself like an over- 
ripe tomato. His haughtiness had given way to the piti- 
ful meekness of a bank president greeting a depositor dur- 
ing a panic. 

When he saw Slinky slither up to his desk he had just 
enough presence of mind to button his coat over his watch, 
set the silver inkstand on the far corner, and feel for his 
cravat pin. Slinky acknowledged the tribute with a deli- 
cate sarcasm. “Don’t worry; I never do nothin’ to me 
own profession.” 

Pedrick flushed and snorted: “Well, what do you 
want.? I’m a busy man!” 


25 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Slinky swept a flashlight look about the room, hitched 
up his chair, as if he were going to pocket it, and lowered 
his voice: 

“Boss, I see by de papers you’re up against it, and 
you got a heavy boiden on yer shoulders.” 

“Get to it !” said Pedrick. 

Slinky rose. “Well, o’ course, if I’m keepin’ you up. 
I’ll move on, as the sayin’ is. I seen a way of helpin’ a 
feller sufferer out o’ trouble, and it looked so poifickly 
simple I fought I’d put you wise, but I don’t want to 
bodder a busy man.” 

“Sit down, and spit it out. What’s the idea.?^” 

“Look here, boss. I’m a gent’man and I’m useta bein’ 
treated as such.” 

“Plave a cigar and let’s hear what you’ve got up your 
sleeve.” 

“T’anks. Nemmine, I got a match. Well, here’s de 
situation as I dope it out. You folks have gotta cough 
twenty-fi’ thou’ or perduce the statue. You can’t do 
needer on short notice. I happen to know a gent’man 
who’s got a statue layin’ idle. He could touch it up a bit, 
trim de whiskers, change de knickerbockers into khaki 
pants, and presto-change-o, you got a Spanish war vet’run 
before you know it. 

“Me fren’ is a blue-ribbon sculptor, and you could 
say he’s been workin’ on de statue for two years in Italy. 
He’s been dere and he could carry out de bluff. You could 
say you’d been meanin’ to surprise de merry villagers, and 
had intended to postpone de unveilin’ till de Fourf o’ 
next July, but seein’ as a soitain slimy party from out o’ 
town has cast aspoisions on your sacred honor, and de fair 
name of St. Chorch — and so on, you will erect de moni- 
ment at once. By de time you got de pedestal set up de 
statue will be in de freight yard.” 

26 


The Scandal of St. George 

The inside of Boss Pedrick’s head was like a choir 
loft full of hosannas, but his front was as grave as ever. 
All he said was : 

“You haven’t got a pedestal handy, have you?” 

“No, we ain’t, and it’s too bad. While we was at it 
we might as well have — no, we ain’t got no pedestal. But 
I could git you one cheap from a friend o’ mine what runs 
a marble yard.” 

Boss Pedrick was a man of few words. From the cor- 
ner of his mouth not occupied by his gigantic cigar, he 
merely ejected: 

“You’re on.” 

There was some haggling over the price to be paid, 
and he gradually brought Slinky — who had a poor head 
for business — from the clouds to a flat one thousand dol- 
lars. Slinky managed to secure a promise of flve hundred 
dollars in advance, and the Boss dismissed him for an 
hour, while he called up his co-criminals and told them 
what he had decided for them, and how much assessment 
each would have to pay. 

“We save twenty-four thousand dollars and our bacon, 
so walk up to the desk and cough.” 

That night the oligarchy that ruled St. George had 
the first good sleep since the new editor began his cam- 
paign for circulation, alias reformation. And Slinky was 
on a sleeping car, bound for New York, without waiting 
for a telegram. He had five hundred dollars, and as he 
lay awake all night to guard it he realized and resented 
the inconvenience to which property holders are put by 
the dishonest. 

So excited was Slinky over his great coup that he 
marched up to the house in broad daylight, and when the 
old negro cook came to the door he walked round her as if 
he owned the place. He hurried straight to the studio, but 

n 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

paused with hand uplifted to knock, for he heard from 
within the click and clatter of a chisel upon marble — a 
pleasant enough sound, as a rule, but one that gave Slinky 
a premonitory chill. 


CHAPTER VI 

THE GENERAL BECOMES A NYMPH 

S LINKY tapped with aspen fingers, and Memling, in 
a blouse and with marble dust prematurely whitening 
his hair, opened the door, looked surprised, held the door 
slightly ajar, and called over his shoulder: 

“Oh, Nellie! — Herman is here. You might put on that 
portiere till I see what he wants. Ready? Come in, Her- 
man. To what do we owe the honor of this visit?” 

Slinky wedged through the chink without a word, and 
his eyes search-lighted the huge two-storied room for the 
purloined statue. It was not to be seen. The only visible 
marble was a something about life size, which was evi- 
dently the beginning of a “Wenus.” 

“What do you think of her?” said Memling. 

“It’s a little oily for me to say,” said Shnky, side- 
stepping art criticism. “But where’s old General Pulsi- 
fer.?” 

“This is he — or she.?” 

“Dat.?” 

“That.” 

“Well, I’ll be — do you meanta — why, what t’ ” 

“Exactly. You see, Herman, the day after you left 
town for the city of — I mislaid the address.” 

“He mislaid the address!” whispered Slinky. 

“That day I studied General Pulsifer closely, and I 
^8 


The General Becomes a Nymph 

discovered that he was but the crude disguise of the mos?: 
beautiful beauty that was ever turned to stone. I have 
been releasing her, Herman, and Nellie has been kind 
enough to pose as a guide. I call her a dryad. Do you 
know what a dryad is.?” 

Slinky did not know and did not care. What he 
wanted to know was why in — ^but Memling was rambling 
on : 

“Somebody has well said that sculpture is the easiest 
of the arts, since all you have to do is to take a block of 
marble and knock off what you don’t want. That is what 
I have been doing, simply shelhng, as it were, the dryad. 
She will make me famous after I am dead.” 

Slinky was thinking of making him dead on the spot. 
He hesitated between apoplexy and murder. In a faint, 
strangled tone, he rasped: 

“So whilst I was layin’ out in de tall grass you done 
me doit like dis !” 

“Gently, Herman; there are ladies present. Don’t 
forget yourself — or me. When this is finished I shall sell 
it for far more than the paltry sum your marble-yard 
friend would have paid for a damaged block.” 

Slinky passed from throttling rage, via womanish 
tears, to helpless collapse. Then he poured out his own 
story. Memling complimented him on his inspiration, 
and expressed his regret at its unavailability — but it 
was a shallow editorial regret. He was so rapt with 
the joy of a return of his old creative fervor that 
the dilemma of the St. George bosses made no impres- 
sion on his pity. 

“Let the ward heelers heel themselves,” he sneered. 
“You can return them the money and explain.” 

“Retoin de money!” gasped Slinky, to whom the idea 

29 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

returning somebody’s else money was inconceivable. 
*‘^ 'ot on your bloomin’ dryad. I’ll write and explain dat 
I can’t deliver de goods, and dat I’ll keep de money for 
expenses. I’ll add a P. S., ‘Boin dis letter.’ ” 

He did, and they “boined” the letter. Mr. Pedrick 
was so ashamed of himself for playing the bit biter that 
he never even answered it. For one reason. Slinky had 
neglected to enclose his address. For another, Mr. Pedrick 
felt that his suggestion was well worth the price. And 
some other penurious sculptor furnished the statue that 
now tops the Typhoid Monument. Pedrick is still King of 
St. George, and the new editor has been taken into camp 
by enough extra city advertising to make up for the cir- 
culation that fell off as soon as Pedrick appeased the 
citizens along the lines of Slinky’s suggestion. 

But the treachery of Memling smouldered in Slinky’s 
soul, and the idea of wasting time on a mere statue to be 
vended in the open market did not appeal to his ideas of 
trade. 

While he brooded Memling’s chisel flew, now splitting 
off some fragment that thumped the floor; now merely 
whispering over the surface, almost invisibly qualifying 
some curve or plane, till the marble seemed turned to velvet, 
and so human that it would surely dimple under the touch 
of a finger. 

Those were days of ecstasy for Memling — ^his thoughts 
were as pure as Canova’s, as high as Michelangelo’s, as 
serene as Praxiteles’. 

When at last the Dryad was finished he stood off and 
mused upon it like an exultant creator. 

“Oh, you beauty, you beauty!” he cried, with an in- 
sane light in his eyes. 

Nellie, who had stood model for it till she ached; 

30 






‘I’m so glad you like me’ ” 


[Page 31] 


The General Becomes a Nymph 

Nellie, who was a thief at heart, and a goddess in body, 
tiptoed up, and murmured over his shoulder: 

“I’m so glad you like me.” 

“You!” snapped Memling, brutal at being dragged 
from the clouds. “You! — what have you got to do with 
it? You were only the model.” 

It was cruel, but great artists must not be weakened 
too suddenly. It is like snapping the pinion of an aero- 
plane in full flight. 

When Nellie wept Memling apologized, but absent- 
mindedly, absent-heartedly. 

His turn for rebuflP and humiliation came when he 
tried to sell his divine achievement. Few of the art deal- 
ers would even visit his studio, the others said: “Very 
nice, but there’s no market whatever for classics by Ameri- 
cans.” 

There was consolation for Memling in that he kept his 
Galatea at home where her greatest admirer could adore 
her. And she was adorable, with her slim, white perfec- 
tions; her exquisite poise; the eyes that did not seem to 
be blank, but to be drenched with tender meditation ; the 
lips that did not seem to be white, cold, and hard, but 
warm, amorously tremulous. 

Now all this while the funds of the company were float- 
ing off^ into smoke. Slinky found Memling so uselessly 
dreamy, so tottering on the verge of a backslide into 
sculpture and honesty, that he felt called upon to take 
the matter in hand himself. 

Through some of those subterrene channels of infor- 
mation by which the underworld keeps together. Slinky 
got in touch with a man who had the same tendencies as 
he, but had chosen the crooked art branch instead of the 
quicker and more daring methods of the burglar and the 

31 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

confidence operator. Instead of gold bricks and green 
goods he sold fresh-made, smoke-cured canvases under 
the aliases of old masters, and Greek or Italian 
antiques whose marble was quarried in America, or 
whose bronze was cast in New Jersey and sicklied over 
with a forged patina. 

Slinky explained the situation to this man. Max Stru- 
bel, by name, and Max Strubel explained the method by 
which such things were manipulated. He said that it was 
all up to the statue, so Slinky brought him to the statue. 
Strubel found it “very classy, all to the custard, exactly 
the goods.” 

Memling, thinking him a dealer in good faith, flushed 
with joy at finding an art merchant with brains. But he 
almost fainted when Strubel said: 

“All ve gotta do is to bury it under a barn for a few 
mont’s.” 

“Bury it under a bam !” Memling echoed. 

“Yes, ve find dat ammonia is the best stain, and it 
don’t vash owit.” 

Instantly Memling understood. He was overswept 
with the shame of a father declared incompetent, unworthy 
to keep his own young. Memling’s only child was to be 
carried off, adopted by some one else, given another name, 
and kept in ignorance of her true parentage. His other 
children had been still-born, had died in fetal suffocation. 
And now his one full-grown child, the daughter of his soul, 
was to be deported and sold to ignominy, to shame, to 
white slavery. 

His whole being revolted. He seized a mallet, and 
whirled on the visitor. 

“Get out of here, you unspeakable Iscariot, before I 
crack your ugly skull!” 


32 


The Sacrifice 

Strubel was petrified into a momentary statue of 
amazement, then he fled with unsuspected speed. 

“And now, Slinky, what have you got to say.?” Mem- 
ling thundered, the mallet ready to perform upon Slinky’s 
sconce. Slinky had nothing to say. Then, the battle over, 
Memling fainted at the feet of his Dryad, who smiled 
down upon him with motionless tenderness. 


CHAPTER VII 
THE SACRIFICE 

W HEN Slinky had rolled and hoisted the long form 
of Memling to a couch he resuscitated him into 
a high fever. 

Nellie, who tried to nurse him, and Slinky, who spelled 
her, blamed it to an emotional crisis, but when they were 
forced to call in a doctor, he said that it was germs from 
bad water or improper food. Slinky blamed it to Wau- 
peka, and wondered if the Pulsifer marble would have to 
serve as a typhoid monument, after all. 

But Memling came through the fever, and, largely 
owing to his inability to obtain food, suffered no relapse, 
but drifted into convalescence, and grew stronger day by 
day, until Slinky, who grew weaker every day from priva- 
tion, felt him strong enough to be told the truth. 

So much money had been poured out for medicines, 
for alcohol hideously wasted on external applications, for 
the appalling salary of a trained nurse, and the high- 
priced broths and delicacies prescribed by the high-priced 
doctor, that the till was emptied completely. More money 
must be earned at once. 


SS 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Slinky had had a jolt the last time he was abroad, 
from the cheerful hail of a police detective who advised 
him to keep out of that district. He was afraid to make 
any attempts upon the timepieces of men or the vanity 
boxes of women. Memling was too weak to invent any of 
his great schemes. He just lay on a couch and grew fat 
of body and head as he stared at the Dryad, who answered 
always with the same cooing smile. 

Slinky looked at her angrily and meaningly, and > she 
smiled just the same at him. Memling saw his look and 
got his meaning. They thought the same thing for a 
long while; then Memling heaved a sigh of world-weary 
despair, and said: 

“Go on ; tell Strubel I’ll apologize, if he’ll come back.” 

When Strubel came he assured Mr. Memling that he 
cherished no ill feelinks, it was all a metter of business. He 
sat on the edge of Memling’ s couch with unpleasantly dis- 
turbing effects, but Memling did not kick him as he 
wanted to. Mr. Strubel outlined his scheme. 

When the statue was ready affidavits would be ready 
for Mr. Strubel’s most reliable affidaviters. These would, 
being duly sworn, depose that the statue had been exca- 
vated from a bricked-up vault in Italy, and pronounced 
by experts — two or three Italian affidaviters- — a gen- 
uine sculpture of the best Greek period, probably 
of the school of Lysippus. It had evidently been 
brought to Italy by some of the Roman emperors, 
and hidden in the ground in expectation of one of 
the barbaric invasions. The barbarians came to stay, 
and the owners perished. 

There would be another string of affidavits showing 
that the statue had been shipped out of Italy in a coffin 
as a dead body to evade the law against the exportation 

84 


The Sacrifice 

of antiques. The name of the port, and the bribed in- 
spector, would be omitted “for evident reasons.” 

The statue would appear in a storage warehouse in 
New York, and thither Mr. Strubel would bring such mil- 
lionaires as he knew to be eager for ready-made treasures. 

“It’s perfecdly simble,” Mr. Strubel concluded. “It’s 
done every day. All ve neet is to give de stettue de mel- 
low stain of time. And I know a goot barn to put it 
under vile ve get de affidavits from my glients in Iddaly.” 

Memling had braced himself for the surrender, and he 
stood it all, down to the recurrence of the bam burial. 
The horror of this was so swift that he fainted again. 

When they brought him back he was maundering: 

“I can’t stand it! She is so beautiful; so pure! I 
have no right to ! It is profanation ! I’d rather die !” 

Slinky was weeping for his incomprehensible friend, 
and even Mr. Strubel was moved to compassion : 

“Don’t make yourself sig. Ve got anudder vay out 
of it,” he said. “Soag ut in de varm blut of a lamp.” 

“Blut of a lamp,” Memling echoed, and turned to 
Slinky. “Is he.? Or am I.?” 

“Put it in English, Strubel, if you can,” said Slinky. 

“I did it. ‘Blut’ — don’d you know vat it iss.? — blut.? 
And a lamp is a liddle younk — vat you call it.? — vool 
grows on it and it goes baa-baa !” 

Slinky and Memling nodded their understanding. And 
so it was done. There was something about this new idea 
that pleased Memling ; it gave the fraud an air of ritual 
solemnity. 

It took some days to get a live lamb into New York 
and into the studio, and Nellie, when she heard what was 
to be done, cried and protested so bitterly that Slinky 
locked her in the cellar. 


35 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

The snowy form of the Dryad was lowered carefully, 
till she rested on one elbow, still cooing inaudibly. The 
struggling lamb was dragged forward by Slinky. Stru- 
bel, robed in a sheet, wielded the Levitic knife. 

Suddenly the lamb’s terror was over, the bleating 
stopped short, and the marble was flooded with warm red. 

Memling was too weak of body and soul to help in the 
rite, and he turned his face to the wall as Strubel and 
Slinky varnished the statue with the thickening stain. 

The ceremonial idea had appealed to him, but the 
cruelty and the commercialism nauseated him, and Slinky 
shipped him out of town for a few days — on money ad- 
vanced by Strubel. When he came back the Dryad’s 
pedestal was empty. 

The place was like a cage with the bird flown, a home 
whence the only child has gone out into the world. 

Strubel invited Memling to visit the storage warehouse 
surreptitiously, but he could not endure the thought. He 
was hardened and aged and chilled by the experience, and 
when Strubel’s meager advances were exhausted, and he 
experienced some delay in finding a millionaire to bolt with 
his bait, Memling j oined Slinky in a new series of raids on 
private property. 


CHAPTER VHI 
A CHILD RECLAIMED 

L ean years and fat years, easy escapes and narrow, 
occupied the firm of Dirk Memling and Slinky — 
whatever his name was that season. Strubel had sold the 
statue, but — so he said — for only a “zonk,” and he pro- 
tested that he lost money by the whole transaction. 

36 


A Child Reclaimed 

“He’s holdin’ out on us, o’ course,” said Slinky, “but 
what kin we do? He won’t even tell us de name of de guy 
he stuck wit’ de statue.” 

“The guy you speak of,” said Memling, with ominous 
calm, “got a great work of art. It would have made me 
immortal if I hadn’t been a coward and a beast. I’ve dis- 
owned my own child. I’m worse than Benvenuto Cellini 
or Villon.” 

“I don’t know eeder of de parties, but you can rest 
easy on one point. Nobody else is gettin’ de credit for 
it. It’s one of dem synonymous woiks.” 

This was cold comfort, yet a crumb. 

It was impossible for Memling and Slinky to honor 
every city with a specimen of their occult powers, and 
among the neglected centers was one that ought to have 
tempted them long before. Slinky said one day: 

“Why is it we ain’t ever been to Pittsboig? Dey say 
dey got so many millionaires dere dat dey got ’em drivin’ 
trolleys wit’ gold controllers and diamond lamps.” 

So they went to Pittsburgh, and, after studying the 
town thoroughly, selected a gilded residence district as 
their parish. They operated a series of such successes that 
they found their prowess headlined in all the papers. This 
overjoyed Slinky, but Memling was for leaving well 
enough alone. 

Slinky pleaded: “One more prize boiglary just to 
show up de cops, and I’m wit’ you.” 

Memling consented, and they chose the showiest man- 
sion of all as a proof of skill. Burglar alarms troubled 
them no whit, and they found themselves in gloomy cav- 
erns, which their electric flashes showed to be salons of 
overladen gorgeousness. Memling put his lips to Slinky’s 
ear and whispered: 


37 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

‘‘Pm afraid there’s nothing here worth taking.” 

Slinky whispered back: 

“Are you plumb nutty It’s all solid gold.” 

“Yes,” whispered Memling, “but in such bad taste!” 

They loaded a sack with sundry valuables, including a 
few trinkets from the curio cabinet which Memling felt 
to be too good to leave with their unconscious host. 

They next slipped along a velvet-rugged corridor, and 
entered a room with a glass roof, where the moonlight was 
dozing heavily. There was a fountain in the middle of 
the room — a silent fountain, in whose basin a goldfish 
flicked the surface, streaking it with silver, and sending 
out a little tinkling spray of pearls. 

Over the fountain stood a dim flgure, a marble with 
the dull of centuries upon its moon-blued surface, and the 
spirit of Greece in the dreamy contentedness of every 
sinuous line and flexure. 

Memling dug his nails into Slinky’s arm and dragged 
him forward. They stared at the figure with remember- 
ing awe. And it smiled cooingly at them — the same smile. 

Slinky whispered. “Don’t dat beat” — ^but Memling 
did not hear him. Memling had dropped to his knees, his 
appealing arms embracing the exquisite knees of his 
statue in a Grecian appeal for pardon. 

“Forgive me, my child! Forgive me, my child!” he 
murmured, till Slinky checked him with a frightened 
clutch. 

He dragged Memling to his feet, and whispered: 

“We’d better beat it while de beatin’s good.” 

They slunk to the door again to retrace their path to 
the retreat they had prepared. Memling paused for one 
last look. Then he checked the timorous Slinky and whis- 
pered : 


38 


‘^Why Don’t Wef’ 

“Lend me the jimmy a minute.” 

He took the steel wedge, and stole back to the Dryad’s 
feet, and on the base of the marble, his marble, scratched 
with the edge of the jimmy the letters, “D. M.” 

He breathed deeper, as if he had legitimatized and re- 
claimed his child. Then he bent and touched his lips to 
the perfect insteps, and backed away from the altar of 
sacrifice. 

The owner of that house knew next morning that his 
palace had been looted. But it was months later before 
his daughter said: 

“Look at these letters on the base of this statue. ‘D. 
M.’ What do they mean.^ How did they get there.?” 

“I can’t imagine, but the man who would mar an an- 
cient masterpiece like that ought to be — agh, there’s no 
punishment mean enough for the vandal!” 


CHAPTER IX 
“WHY DON’T WE?” 

T he sculptor never ceased to brood over the loss of 
his marble child. One day he aired his grudge 
against fate to Slinky — even to Slinky. 

“It’s bad enough to have my masterwork masquerad- 
ing as an ancient Greek, but it’s worse to have it hidden 
in a private gallery — the art cellar of a low-browed mil- 
lionaire.” 

Slinky was unsympathetic. “Cheese, but youse artist 
guys is hard to please. You got your price for it, didden’ 
you .?” 

“Indeed I didn’t!” Memling stormed. “The money is 

39 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

the smallest part of the pay of a creator. Publicity is 
the chief wages. A genius may live on his money but he 
lives for his public. I made that statue for the millions, 
not for the millionaires. But the first thing a man does 
when he strikes it rich is to rush out, buy up a lot of great 
art works and put them in cold storage. Just look at 
the Van Veen place in Ucayga.” 

“I can’t see as fur as Ucayga,” Slinky smiled. 

“It’s all here in black and white,” said Memling, and 
tossed into his lap a large magazine devoted to domestic 
architecture, one of those plausible magazines that tell 
you how to build a palace for nothing or thereabouts. 
The Van Veen place was one of the show homes of the 
country, and it was here described and pictured in minute 
detail. 

Slinky glanced at the illustrations and floor plans with 
an indifferent eye. Suddenly he brightened with excite- 
ment. He leaned over and nudged Memling with the 
magazine. 

“Pipe dose pitchers. Bo!” he gasped. “Just made to 
order for us poor boiglars. Every door and winder and 
staircase marked on a map. Dis saves you de trouble of 
feelin’ your way in de dark, or floitin’ with a chamber- 
maid. I’ll have to subscribe to dis sheet.” 

“I never thought of that,” said Memling. But as he 
glanced over the magazine he was more touched by the 
photographs of some of the works of art than by the 
floor plans. 

“Think of those little terra-cotta statuettes from an- 
cient Tanagra blushing unseen in a Ucayga mausoleum. 
They might as well be five fathoms deep in the unfath- 
omed caves of the ocean. Think of those marvelous can- 

40 


“Why Don’t We?” 


vases of Terburg and Van Mieris asleep in shuttered 
rooms ! Think of that bronze head found in the ^gean 
Sea hidden away where nobody can thrilLwith it!” 

“It is fierce. Got a match said Slinky indifferently. 

Memling ignored the request as he glowed with artistic 
rage: “Somebody ought to take them away from him, 
Herman. It’s a public duty.” 

Slinky shot a quick look his way. When Memling 
began to talk about duty, Slinky knew that crime was 
brewing in that strange mind. 

Memling fretted: “He’s got an original bas-relief by 
Jean Goujon up there. I’ve never seen it, Herman, and 
I’d like to. I have a right to. I really ought to. By the 
Lord Harry, I’m going to 1” 

“Got a match.?” Slinky pleaded, pining for tobacco. 
Memling handed him a light, with an absent sigh. The 
fumes cheered Slinky enough to lead him to suggest 
ironically: “Maybe if you was to drop old Roger Van 
Veen a line he’d give you a permit to see your John Goo 
John.” 

“I don’t know him, in the first place. In the second 
place, it would be selfish just for me to go there alone. 
Other people have a right to see those things, too. Old 
Van Veen has no right to suppress masterpieces. Some- 
body ought to take ’em away from him — just to teach 
these art misers a lesson. I’d like nothing better than to 
take them away from him myself — all of them. I’ve half 
a mind to go up there and strip the whole place bare of 
everything worth while in it.” 

Slinky smiled at the idea: “I guess de udder half of 
your mind would tell you you’d need more baggage wag- 
ons dan Barnum’s soikus.” 


41 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“Yes, it would be a labor of Hercules,” said Memling, 
“but well worth while — well worth while. It would be a 
fitting rebuke to Van Veen’s greed, a service to the pub- 
lic. First he shuts up the works of art, then he shuts up 
the house for half the year. It’s a crime.” 

Slinky knew whither all this trended, and he grinned: 
“Seein’ you feel like dat, I can on’y repeat de woids of de 
feller dat de Jew was tellin’ how much insurance he car- 
ried on his store : ‘I got five t’ousand insurance,’ he says, 
‘on a stock dat ain’t worth one t’ousand,’ and de feller 
says, ‘Veil, vy don’t you.?’ he says.” 

“That’s right,” said Memling. “Why don’t we?” 

“Nuttin’ easier,” said Slinky. “Dis magazine was 
sent to us straight from heaven.” 

Memling and Slinky began to study the various pic- 
tures, as military men study war maps. They worked 
out imaginary campaigns against it, played a sort of 
Kriegspiel with the illustrations, until all the entrances 
and exits were as familiar to them as San Francisco harbor 
is to the Japanese. 

The attack on the Van Veen place, however, must be 
in the nature of a siege. No mere burglary would 
suffice, and Memling cudgeled his brain for a scheme. At 
length it came to him and he issued a mysterious under- 
ground call to arms. It would need a small cohort of 
burglars to carry out his strategy. 


42 


Gold-Tooth'^ and '‘Short-Arm" 


CHAPTER X 

“GOLD-TOOTH” AND “SHORT-ARM” 

N ight had come on early and ugly; the wind fairly 
raided the town with the howling ferocity of a pack 
of drunken Huns. The rain went down the streets in clat- 
tering volleys of thin, long arrows, barbed with chill. 

Everybody who had to be abroad in such ribald 
weather behaved like a hunted criminal, cowering in any 
shelter, sneaking along walls, making furtive dashes 
around stoops and across open spaces. Even if the po- 
liceman had been on the alert he would have suspected no 
man’s manner in that turmoil. 

Certainly, no one took account of the number or qual- 
ity of those who crept into the doorway of the building in 
West Tenth Street, where Dirk Memling played sculptor 
when he was not busy at thievery. 

Though Memling was holding the reception, the 
guests were all strangers to him. At Memling’s behest. 
Slinky had gone out into the highways, byways, and sly- 
ways to gather them in. Every man jack of them had 
done time, or had deserved it. 

The host was the last to arrive, and when he cast eyes 
upon the living caricatures, the congress of horrible ex- 
amples, he gasped: 

“Great Scott ! It looks like a scene in the Brocken !” 
“What’s that about Brooklyn Short-arm Clary whis- 
pered to Slinky. 

“Don’t mind him,” said Slinky. “He’s always shootin’ 
off dem collidge woids. It looks to me more like one of 

43 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

dem morning round-ups dey used to have at headquarters 
when dey run de night’s grist past de detectives.” 

Short-arm winced at the memory. 

The sculptor glanced at his guests again. He was a 
priest of the beautiful, but its extreme opposite also fas- 
cinated him, and he preferred a splendid ugliness to a 
doll-faced perfection. Here were predestined rogues 
whose very features seemed to condemn them — or to ex- 
cuse them, as the point of view might be. Those who were 
not branded with the mark of Cain in a simian forehead 
or a prognathous jaw or a bestial ear, were betrayed by 
the habit of evil expressions caught from the habit of evil 
thoughts. 

To Memling the convention looked like a group of 
wax figures from a chamber of horrors come to life. The 
prison pallor of many of them emphasized the kinship. 

Slinky presented the guests to the host in a gesture 
that made one invoice of the lot : 

“Gents, dis is Mr. Memling; Mr. Memling, dese is de 
gents we spoke of. I can guarantee every one of ’em as 
a perfessional. Dey ain’t a yellow streak or a squealer in 
de bunch — and no amachoors.” 

The guests acknowledged the tribute and the introduc- 
tion with various shufflings and duckings and coughs. 
Memling said: 

“You honor my poor studio, gentlemen, with your 
society. My only regret is that poor Lombroso could 
not be here to meet you and see all his theories confirmed.” 

Short-arm turned again to Slinky : 

“Who is dat Lombroso guy.? Is he one of us?” 

“Never hoid of him. Sounds like he was a wop.” 

“Prob’ly a Black Hander,” said Short-arm, indignant 
at being classed out of his category. 

44 



“We didn’t talk — didn’t need to — just smoked.” Page 45 






t 


^"Gold-TootJi^ and '' Short- Armf^ 

Earlier in the evening Memling had been at some pains 
to remove from the studio everything he thought his 
guests capable of removing for him, but he had not felt 
it necessary to take away certain plaster casts and clay 
beginnings. Of all imaginable things, these seemed to be 
the least likely to tempt the most ardent thief. 

He was amused to see that one of the guests, known 
to infamy as “Gold-tooth” Lesher, was examining an 
oiled clay sketch for a life-sized bust. But Memling’s 
smile vanished when he saw the fellow inquisitively jab a 
crooked finger into the yielding surface, leaving a gaping 
crevice that could not possibly be called a dimple. Then 
he drew his thumb nail, like a plane, along the exquisite 
contour of the throat. 

Memling was turned into a statue of horror. But 
Gold-tooth laughed, or, rather, hissed — for he had won 
his name from the lone and gleaming monument that stood 
for many an absent tooth ; and his articulation was so af- 
fected that he always spoke as if he were drunk, though 
he was not — always. 

Like a huge and teething infant with a new toy, he 
giggled over the dented and grooved clay: 

“Shay, Shlinky, dat shtufF’s shoft, ain’t it.?” 

Memling came to life, now, and leaped at the wretch, 
flung him aside with a wrathful growl: 

“Keep your dirty hands off that!” 

Gold-tooth looked as if he might burst into sobs. 

“Why, I didn’t mean no harm, mishter ; I didn’t doity 
it none. It’sh mud, anyway, and I jush wanted to shee 
if it was shoft, zash all.” 

But humility did not mend the outraged shape, and 
Memling roared : 

“I’ll find out how ‘shoft’ your skull is if you touch 

45 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

that again. I worked four days on that throat, and now 
look at it!” 

Slinky interposed: “Don’t mind him, Mr. Memling; 
it’s de foist time he was ever in a studio.” 

Gold-tooth had endured Memling’s ferocity, for he 
was used to being jostled about by the police, but he could 
not tolerate Slinky’s patronage. He was furious. 

“Zash a black shlander ! Zish is not de foisht shtoodo 
I wash ever in. Don’t you shpozhe I ever had me photo- 
graph took.?” 

Slinky grinned. “Oh, I wasn’t finkin’ of de studio 
where dey mugged you fer de Rogues’ Gallery. I was 
speakin’ of real studios.” 

“Ah, and I’ve been in udder shtoodos beshide.” 

Slinky grinned again. “Oh, yes, I remember.” He 
turned to Memling with a snicker. “He got so toisty 
once he busted into a dark room and drank every bottle in 
de place dry. It would have killed a human bein’, but 
Gold-tooth is lined with tiling, like a bat’room. He on’y 
developed the biggest jag you ever saw. He was so full 
of pyro and hypo dat he ought to ’a’ been framed.” 

Gold-tooth sizzled with pride. “Zash right. I broke 
two shoushand negativesh before I got out troo de shky- 
light. But I wash shinking of anudder big, immensh 
shtoodo I cleaned out where dey make dem movin’ pick- 
shersh.” 

At this remark Memling, who had been playing the 
beauty doctor and diligently repairing the wounds of the 
clay bust, turned sharply and demanded: 

“You say you cleaned out a moving picture studio.?” 

“Yesshir,” said Gold-tooth, trying to look modest. 
“Didn’t you never read about it?” 

“I must confess my ignorance,” said Memling. 

46 


Gold-Tooth’^ and ''Short- Arm/’ 


Gold-tooth looked at him rather with pity than scorn. 

“Don’t you take de Poleesh Gazootf Dey gimmee a 
bully write-up.” 

Memling bowed humbly. “I must have missed that 
number in the barber shop.” 

“He don’t git to the shearin’ bench any too often,” 
Slinky explained, with a glance at the sculptor’s hya- 
cin thine curls. 

Memling never permitted a familiarity from Slinky. 
He shriveled him with a glance, as he coldly inquired of 
Gold-tooth : 

“Did they capture you.?^” 

“Capsher me.?*” Gold-tooth gasped. “Capsher me.?^ 
For zhat! Why, de bulls never capsher anybody unlesh 
he bumpsh into ’em on his getaway. Everybody admitted 
dat I pulled off de neatesht job of dat sheashon.” 

Memling regarded him with new respect : “You’re the 
very man I want to see. I’m going to give you another 
chance to distinguish yourself.” 

“Do you want me to clean out anudder movin’ pick- 
sher shtoodo.?” 

“Better than that. Sit down, won’t you, and I’ll ex- 
plain.” 

Gold-tooth, simply oozing distinction, sat down, and 
then sat up like an indulgent monarch. But jealousy is 
the curse of all professionals, and even thieves are be- 
littled by it. The deference Gold-tooth received from the 
swell guy who was giving the blowout aroused the resent- 
ment of Short-arm Clary. He bristled and sniffed : 

“Say, boss, don’t listen to his spiel. Dat guy don’t 
know no more about de movin’-picture game dan a cat 
knows of mattymatics.” 

“Do you.^” 


47 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“Do I?” Short-arm echoed. “Usedn’t I to woik in one 
of de'^factories.?” 

“Bravo!” cried Memling. “Take a chair — ^take the 
whole divan! How long did you work there.?” 

“Six weeks.” 

“And you left them because — ^because ” 

Slinky explained: “Because dey got in de habit of 
missin’ t’ings from the till.” 

“Oh!” said Memling. “I beg your pardon.” 

“Don’t mensh,” said Short-arm politely. 

“This is better than I dreamed,” Memling purred. “I 
prayed Heaven to send me some one who knew something 
about this subject, and it sent me you two gentlemen.” 

Short-arm would not be grouped with Gold-tooth. 

“Don’t bunch me wit’ dat guy,” he said. “He don’t 
know a rheostat from a re- wind.” 

“I do sho!” roared Gold-tooth. 

“Well, what’s the dilF.?” Short-arm demanded. 

“Zash my bishnessh,” Gold-tooth growled evasively. 

Short-arm smiled with triumph, and said: “What’s 
the idea, mister? Are you going to clear out a moving- 
picture plant?” 

“Yes, and no,” said Memling. 

“You couldn’t get much for dat junk,” Short-arm 
said. 

But Memling explained: “Please understand once for 
all that I never steal — any more than I make statues — 
merely for money. Nobody who devotes his art to base 
commercial ends exclusively ever succeeds largely. I am 
afraid that one of us will have to rob a moving-picture 
factory, because I need some of its equipment, and I 
have found, on investigation, that it is costly to buy, and 
expensive to rent. 


48 


‘‘^Gold-Toothf^ and '' Short- Arruf" 

“Of course, if we have bad luck in borrowing ^these 
things without a cash deposit, we could lease some vacant 
tailor shop, and add another to the million or more ten- 
cent palaces; but I shudder at the harm we should do to 
the public intelligence — if there is any such thing.” 

The guests were blinking at all these indigestible 
phrases, but Memling flowed on : 

“Getting the equipment is only the beginning of my 
campaign. I have in mind a masterpiece of appropria- 
tion that should go down into history as one of the no- 
blest burglaries on record. It deserves rather the glorious 
name of pillage than the homely term of burglary. The 
idea came to me when Herman and I were temporarily so- 
journing in Waupeka, New York — a city from which we 
removed an inartistic statue for the good of the people. 
You remember Waupeka, no doubt, Herman.” 

Slinky shuddered at the reminder. 

“Could anybody who ever spent a night in dat jay- 
bird’s nest ever forget Waupeka.^ Every day is Sunday 
dere, and Sunday is ” 

Memling smiled indulgently, and went on: 

“Well, when Herman and I were in Waupeka we killed 
an idle hour by visiting the town’s one amusement, a mov- 
ing-picture parlor. It was there that I got my idea for 
this chef-d’oeuvre. I think I may call it an inspired 
crime, and if our technique equals the grandeur of our 
theme our deed shall be long remembered in the annals of 
our art.” 

Short-arm looked at Slinky, and murmured: “Dat 
guy can play de dictionary bot’ ways from de middle.” 

“If you will all be seated,” Memling was saying, “I 
will explain in detail what is to be done.” 

The guests sank to various chairs, divans, platforms, 

49 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

and model thrones, and the surplus sat on the floor. As 
Memling’ s eye ran along the motley array he was fasci- 
nated by the line of heads, every one envisaging some per- 
nicious trait. 

He took a palm full of oiled clay, and, as he spoke, he 
pinched and thumbed it into a little portrait. Then he 
laid it aside for future reference, and, taking up another 
lump, molded it into a rough likeness of some other face. 

He finished his lecture and his gallery of clay cartoons 
at the same time. It was late, and he dismissed the as- 
sembly with the words : 

“Keep your eye on the personal column, and don’t for- 
get that the signal for arriving on the field of action will 
be this notice : 

“Nellie, please come home, and all will be forgiven. The 
lamp is burning and mamma is pining for you. Papa.’' 

With that, he opened the door. To the dismay of the 
whole company, they found that the weather had spent 
its hysterics, and a candid moon illuminated the gleaming 
streets. More than usual caution was needed, therefore, 
in sending the guests forth singly and by twos at such 
intervals as would not interest any policeman who might 
be met by chance — the usual way. 


CHAPTER XI 

THE MOVING PICTURE MOVEMENT 

H ere, whatcha tryin’ to do? Where you goin’ with 
all them false whiskers on?” 

It was a policeman who spoke, and spoke gruffly, suit- 

50 


The Moving Picture Movement 

ing the action to the word. His prisoner wriggled to get 
away as he wailed: 

“Wash out or you’ll shpoil the picksher.” 

“What picture, you boob.^” 

“Movin’ picksher, of coursh. Can’t you shee the man 
with the machine.? Lea’ me loosh.” 

The policeman glanced over his shoulder, and saw a 
large camera box perched on a high tripod and presided 
over by a distinguished-looking person, who turned a crank 
diligently. 

Seeing the officer, he stopped and came forward, with 
an aristocratic bearing that impressed even a Ucayga po- 
liceman. And he said: 

“I don’t wonder, officer, that you apprehended my 
friend, there, for his make-up is suspicious. Ucayga is 
lucky to have such a watchful police force. But my friend 
is merely one of the members of our troupe of moving- 
picture artists, and I can vouch for him.” 

Officer Dowd was overawed by the stranger’s tone and 
mellowed by his tribute. But he retained composure 
enough to demand: 

“You can vouch for him, hay? And who are you, I’d 
like to know? I never seen you in Ucayga before.” 

“Dear me, no. I’m from New York. I’m the man- 
ager of the — but here’s my card.” 

Officer Dowd read the pasteboard with an official knot- 
ting of brow and protrusion of lip : 


FLICKERLESS FILM SERVICE, Inc. 
New York, New York. 

L. B. Clymer, Field Mgr. 


51 



The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Officer Dowd cleared his throat, as if he were clearing 
a courtroom, and gulped: 

“Are you Mr. — Mr. ” 

“Yes. We have come to your beautiful city to take 
some views because the scenery is so fine. It is the 
nearest thing to Paris we can get in the State. I 
love the locale.” 

Officer Dowd almost beamed: “Yes, I reckon our 
locale is about as nifty as any in these parts.” 

The appeal to civic pride shook the resolution of the 
municipal sentinel so that he was ready for the final and 
irresistible bribe — a free ticket. 

“Clymer” felt in his pocket absently: 

“These films of ours will probably be shown in the 
Ucayga Nickelorium next week, and if you will present 
this card to the man at the door he will furnish you with 
two of the best seats in the house. What night shall I 
make it for.?” 

“Thursday is her night off,” the policeman mused 
aloud, and Memling knew he was his. 

He said, with deep vexation: “Oh, pshaw, I’ve left 
my passblank in my other waistcoat. But you shall have 
all you want later.” After dangling this thistle before 
the officer, he added another lure: 

“How would you like to be in one of the pictures .?” 

Dowd rubbed his stubble. “Well, I don’t know. 
Would Norah see me there Thursday night next.?” 

“She certainly would — a thousand pictures of you — 
this machine takes hundreds of photographs a minute, you 
know.” 

The thought of a thousand photographs of himself 
was stupefying. He whispered: 

“No, I don’t know. Does it.?” 

52 


The Moving Picture Movement 

“Yes. Everybody in town would like to see you in 
action. You really must help us out.” 

“Well, it’s kind of lonely out here in this part of 
town. I’ve nothing much to do just now.” 

“Splendid! Our first picture represents a thrilling 
daylight robbery — a lady’s purse is stolen, and the thief 
is pursued all over the neighborhood and finally captured. 
It would be splendid if you should be in at the climax. 
What do you say.?” 

If any oflScer could have resisted the immortality of 
it, this officer was not that officer. Dowd blushed as he 
answered : 

“Well, I don’t mind. The run would do me good. 
Norah says I’m getting a little ongbongpongy round the 
belt.” 

Memling outlined the scenario. He would have pre- 
ferred something more original, but originality is sus- 
picious. 

It had been planned that Snubby Nettler should snatch 
the purse of Memling’s sometime model Nellie, who had 
come along with the troupe. Knowing, however, that 
Nellie’s purse was a mere “prop,” it occurred to Snubby 
to improve on the libretto. 

Among the crowd that gathered about the machine 
was a fat and florid citizeness of Ucayga with an obese 
hand bag. It looked good to Snubby, and he snatched it, 
and shot away like a sprinter hearing the starter’s pistol. 
The fat lady — one Mrs. Oberf elder, as it transpired — let 
out a shriek that would have tested a phonograph, and 
took after Snubby, followed with great delight by as 
much of Ucayga as was not otherwise engaged. 

Memling could have fainted with rage; but, seeing that 
Officer Dowd was looking at him inquiringly, he smiled, 

53 


The Amiable, Crimes of Dirk Memling 

and nodded, and began to turn his crank with vigor. 
Officer Dowd’s bulk quickly faded from foreground to 
background, and round a corner out of the frame. 

The rest of Memling’s troupe, in motley attire, chiefly 
selected for its disguising qualities, stood idly wondering 
what to do. 

“Keep after him!” yelled Memling. “Get that purse 
back, or the whole jig’s up.” 

“What’ll we do if we find him.?”’ cried Short-arm. 

“Killum I” roared Slinky, as he flashed across the 
line. 

Sick at heart, Memling followed. There were many 
vacant lots in the outskirts, and by cutting across them 
he got near enough to the chase to be seen now and then 
by Officer Dowd. Whenever that puffing constable glanced 
Memling’s way the panting sculptor made a violent pre- 
tense of turning his crank. 

At last, in despair he chartered a passing milk wagon. 
The horse had seen better days, and set off with buoyant 
hilarity. He failed to take one fence, but negotiated 
some very respectable ditches. The driver was too excited 
to hear the clamor of the jouncing milk cans or to hear 
the comparative silence abaft when the last of them had 
danced over the end gate and spattered its pale-blue con- 
tents in the dust. 

Snubby made a long flight of it, and the tail to his 
kite was frittering rapidly away. Mrs. Oberf elder was 
one of the first to sink down and prepare for a death by 
asphyxiation. Memling’s troupe gave out gradually, all 
except Nell, who felt that she was dying, but kept on for 
Memling’s sake. But Officer Dowd, doubly ambitious to 
gain fame and lose flesh, made a splendid pursuit, aided 
by numerous small boys and dogs. 

54 


The Moving Picture Movement 

Memling encouraged him with shouts and by turning 
the crank always when Dowd looked back. 

Suddenly Snubby whisked round a distant corner, 
and was lost to view. Memling groaned aloud. But the 
milkman said: 

“I know an alley where I can head him off. Shall 

Memling shrieked his assent, and the milk wagon, 
turning into a shabby lane, went hurtling past a long 
series of back doors, woodsheds, ash piles, garbage heaps, 
stables, and panicky chicken yards. 

Through a rift between sheds, Memling caught sight 
of Snubby speeding down the next street, the red purse 
making a pleasant note of color. He put his hand out, 
and the milkman stopped the horse so short that Memling 
catapulted over him. 

But he was too furious to know or care how hurt he 
was. He got to his feet, and unshipped the tripod from 
the camera box, while Snubby’s footsteps came nearer 
and nearer. 

As he dashed past Memling’s concealment, the sculp- 
tor thrust the tripod between his feet, and Snubby went 
to earth in a five-legged chaos. 

Memling put his foot on Snubby ’s wrist and wrenched 
the red purse loose. He was capable of murder, but in 
the distance he saw the mob of pursuers approaching. 

“You hold him!” he cried to the milkman, and, setting 
the camera box on the fence, he turned off endless yards 
of imaginary film, while Officer Dowd and his followers 
clattered up, gasping and sweating, but happy in the 
thought that their deed was not without record. 

Officer Dowd was crushed to learn that he was not the 
captor, but Memling appeased him by posing him for a 
final tableau with the culprit in one hand and the red 

55 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

purse in the other. And he promised him the center of 
the rolling stage in the next drama. 

Snubby’s line of flight had brought him round near 
the starting point, and Mrs. Oberf elder soon limped up, 
demanding vengeance between gasps. 

Her, also, Memling appeased by explaining that it 
was aU a careless error, by promising to' name the film 
“The Red Purse,” and by an insinuation of free tickets. 

When her first flush of rapture had subsided, she pro- 
tested that she would look ridiculous in the scene where 
she flopped. Memling explained: 

“At that moment, madam, realizing the delicacy of 
the situation, I turned the camera away. If, however, I 
find, on developing the film, that you are represented in 
any but the most flattering light, I shall carefully excise 
that portion of the reel.” 

This overwhelmed Mrs. Oberfelder. She did, indeed, 
let fall a hint that she could do better if she were allowed 
to go home, to get on her other hat, and run the Mara- 
thon again. But Officer Dowd magnificently ordered her 
to move on. And that incident was closed. 

CHAPTER XH 

DELILAH FINDS A SAMSON 

T he Flickerless Film people met in council of war, 
later, and Snubby was tried by court-martial. Gold- 
tooth was in favor of “someshing wish boiling oil in it” ; 
Slinky was for instant death; Nellie asked only to get her 
nails into his eyes ; and Short-arm Clary begged the privi- 
lege of kicking him all the way to New York. 

But Snubby wept, and explained that impulse and 

56 


Delilah Finds a Samson 


habit had got the better of judgment; he promised mira- 
cles of atonement if he were allowed to remain. 

Fearing that he might be more dangerous at large in 
all his indiscretion, Memling decided to keep him on pro- 
bation, and Slinky curdled his blood with promises of 
what he would do to him if he overstepped instructions 
again. 

That afternoon, Memling and his cohort set forth on 
another campaign. Admiring citizens, adoring children, 
and gleeful dogs of every breed cluttered their path, and 
asked multitudinous questions. 

The morning’s hippodrome had been carried on in the 
immediate neighborhood of a superb and stately residen- 
tial estate surrounded by high walls except in front, 
where a frowning iron fence gave a view of wide lawns, 
tall, flunkey-like oaks, and a well-groomed brook contrib- 
uting to a perfectly correct lake. 

This was the Van Veen place, and Memling set up 
his tripod within a stone’s throw of the iron gate. He 
was pleased to see that Officer Dowd was chatting with 
a burly varlet, evidently the watchman. 

Memling had noticed him that morning observing 
Snubby’s flight. Now, when Officer Dowd sauntered to 
Memling’s side as if he owned him, Memling was delighted 
to see that the watchman followed, leaving the great gate 
open. 

Dowd introduced him: 

“Say, Mr. Clymer.” 

“Yes, Mr. Dowd,” said Memling. 

“Shake hands with Tom Beals, here.” 

“Delighted, Mr. Beals,” said Memling. 

“Pleased to meecha,” said Beals, amiably trying to 
crush the slim, white hand Memling gave him. But the 

57 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

sculptor’s hand was used to hewing marble, and it was 
the watchman who winced, then added: “You’re all there 
with the grip, young feller.” 

“Thank you,” said Memling. 

Beals was graciously pleased to ask several questions 
about the mysterious machine in the box. 

Memling answered them with technical terms. Short- 
arm Clary had told him a number of things about auto- 
matic fire shutters, intermittent movements without star 
wheels, lamp houses, condenser mounts, tension springs, 
and the like. Memhng remembered the names, but ap- 
plied them all wrong, and Short-arm blushed with vicari- 
ous shame. The watchman, however, never knew the dif- 
ference. He was profoundly impressed. 

Dowd was as proud of Memling as if he had invented 
him. He said: “Better put Beals in one of yer pitch- 
ers, Mr. Clymer. Or would he break the camera with that 
mug of his, do you think 

Memling was groping for some plausible disclaimer, 
when Nellie spoke up. “You’re jealous of him. Officer 
Dowd.” 

She winked at Beals, and he crumpled completely. 
Delilah Nellie urged Samson to join the Philistines. He 
trembled with desire, but protested: 

“What if the old man was to see me picture.?” 

“Ah,” Dowd roared, “old Van Veen don’t go to no 
movin’-picture shows — a box at the Meetropolitan Opry 
House is the cheapest thing he’d set in.” 

“That’s so,” murmured Beale feebly. 

Dowd inquired importantly : “What’s the programme 
this afternoon, Mr. Clymer.?” 

“Well, I was going to do a picture representing a 
thrilling rescue from droT\Tiing, but I don’t see any beau- 
tiful body of water round here.” 

58 


Delilah Finds a Samson 


“There’s a nice lake on the Van Veen place.” 

“Yes, but that’s private property. I presume we’ll 
have to give it up. Nellie, here, was going to be thrown 
into the water by Herman, here, and be rescued by 
Mr. ” 

“I’d like to see that,” said Beals, and then, with a 
languishing look at Nellie: “I wouldn’t mind savin’ you 
from drowning meself.” 

Nellie answered the look with an ocular volume, but 
all she said was : 

“Can you swim.?’” 

“Can a duck?” said he. 

Memling sighed: “I wish I’d spoken to Roger, but I 
forgot that he had a place here.” 

Beals was staggered by that word, “Roger.” 

“D-do you know the old man?” he gasped. 

Memling turned to Slinky with a smile: “Do I know 
Roger Van Veen? Ha, ha, ha! Do you remember, Her- 
man, that night we were on his yacht, when he laid his 
hand on my shoulder, and said, ‘I’ll never forget, Henry, 
that, if it hadn’t been for you, I’d not be alive to-day?’ ” 

“I remember it poifect,” said Slinky. “And I says to 
him ” 

“Don’t tell it !” said Memling, with a warning gesture. 
“It would sound like boasting.” 

Slinky turned to Beals: “Me frien’ here is so modest 
dey’s no livin’ wit’ him.” 

Beals thought hard for a while, before he said: 

“Well, I guess you’d better come on in, and take any 
pictures you want to.” 

Slinky was about to emit three cheers, but Memling 
sighed : 

“I couldn’t think of it without Roger’s permission.” 

“Aw, come on in,” urged Beals. “The old man would 

59 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

git sore on me, if I turned down a friend of his. He’s 
crazy about artists and that sort of thing.” 

‘‘But you don’t know me,” Memling persisted. 

“I know a gentleman when I see one, and I’ll take the 
risk,” said Beals. “He can’t do more than fire me.” 

Memling resisted some more, but finally suffered him- 
self to be led into the inclosure with his crew. Beals 
drove back the crowd that tried to follow, and even ad- 
vised Officer Dowd to stay outside and mind his own busi- 
ness. It was a pitiful exhibition of human jealousy, and 
NeUie giggled to feel that she was the cause of it. 

Once the Flickerless Film troupe was within the pri- 
vate Eden, Beals locked the great gate on the rest of 
Ucayga. As the little company strolled toward the lake. 
Slinky could not help murmuring to Gold-tooth Lesher: 

“Must seem natural to you to be inside the high walls 
wunst agane.” 

“Ah, you clozhe your moush !” said Gold-tooth. 

Meanwhile, Nellie was saying to Memling in a confi- 
dent one, just loud enough to reach Beals’ ear: 

“I’d rather be rescued by Mr. Beals than by anybody 
else. I’d feel safer with him. He looks so strong.” 

After that, wild horses could not have dragged Beals 
from the task. He brought up a pretty skiff, named 
Ulalume, and murmured for Nellie’s private ear: 

“I know a prettier name than that.” 

The glance she gave him was from the same box of 
tricks used by the Lorelei in her well-known specialty — 
the famous “men-die-for-it” brand. 

A little drama was rehearsed on the beach before pro- 
ceeding. Nellie was the ferryman’s daughter, fiercely 
wooed by the wicked lord of the manor with hellish pur- 
pose. But she loved, and was loved by, the honest black- 

60 


Delilah Finds a Samson 

smith. Slinky was the lord of the manor, aided by a pair 
of upstart mustaches and a perfidious silk hat. Short- 
arm was to have been the honest blacksmith, but he yielded 
to understudy Beals with excellent grace, explaining to 
Slinky : 

“It saves me from gettin’ me pants wet, and, besides, 
I got a nasty cough the last time I was in Dannemora.” 

According to the drama. Slinky paid pantomime court 
to Nellie, but she “spoined” him, and he stalked away, 
gnashing his teeth visibly. He hid behind a tree, and 
muttered: “Coise her! Coise her!” in pantomime, while 
Nellie welcomed the honest blacksmith. 

Beals was so grotesquely amateurish that the rest of 
the company turned away to hide their emotion, and Nel- 
lie bit her pretty lips raw to restrain her snickers. At the 
proper moment, the ferryman’s daughter strolled away 
to pick pond lilies with her lover, who played a black- 
smith just as a real blacksmith would, till he got out of 
range, when he became rather realistic. In their absence, 
the fiendish lord stole down to the waiting boat, and — ^hap- 
pening to have an auger on his person — scuttled the ship 
and slunk away. Beals had made some objection to the 
proposed damage, but Memling had offered him money, 
and Nellie had offered him such a look that he had con- 
sented to repair the injury later. 

Innocent of the lord of the manor’s dastardly work, 
the ferryman’s daughter bade the blacksmith good-by, 
entered the rowboat, and was pushed out into the stream, 
throwing kisses between oar strokes. As Memling turned 
the crank, the skiff began to fill and Nellie to utter silent, 
eye-piercing shrieks. 

Two men held the impatient Beals while the boat foun- 
dered. At last, Memling gave the signal, and Beals broke 

61 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

into the water like a retriever. The lake was only waist 
deep — and he knew it — ^but by stooping over he made it 
look very profound, and he had the rapture of saving Nel- 
lie’s life without wetting her feet, though she confessed 
afterward to Memling that he almost suffocated her with 
his clutch. 

Memling announced that the film would be a great suc- 
cess, and thanked Beals profusely. Beals was so eager 
to get away to change his dripping clothes that, when 
Memling admired one of the balconies as a superb place 
for a scene from “Romeo and Juliet,” Beals told him to 
go as far as he liked. 

“It ought to be done by moonlight,” said Memling. 

“There’ll be a m-m-moon this e-e-eve-n-n-ing-g-g,” 
said Beals, with chattering teeth. “I’ll lend you a 1-lad- 
dad-adder.” 

Juliet ought to come onto the balcony from inside 
the house,” Memling insinuated with bated breath. 

Beals forgot to shiver. 

“I’m afraid I couldn’t let you inside without a permit 
from the old man.” 

“I suppose not,” said Memling, and covered a sicken- 
ing sinking of the heart with a brisk query: “By the 
way, where is Roger — I mean Mr. Van Veen.^^ I hadn’t 
seen him at the club for some days before I left town.” 

“Last I heard, he was in Lakewood. He don’t keep 
me informed,” said Beals, with a lurching sarcasm. 

“Evidently not,” said Memling. “I motjbred down to 
Lakewood a week ago, and he was just leaving for — let 
me see, I think he said Atlantic City. Now that I’m here, 
I’m rather sorry I didn’t let him know. He has so often 
spoken of his little terra cottas in the cabinet in the salon 
and his Terburg hanging over the fireplace in the smok- 


Delilah Finds a Samson 

ing room, and his big bas-relief by Goujon in the music 
room. By Jove, I’m sorry to miss that!” 

If the watchman had ever had any doubts of Mem- 
ling’s acquaintance with old Roger Van Veen, they got 
their quietus from his evident acquaintance with the inside 
of the house. The watchman had no illusion that this 
soft-spoken Mr. Clymer was a millionaire. He was ap- 
parently one of those artist fellows old Van Veen used 
to bring to Ucayga, now and then, to entertain his guests 
on some special occasion, Dutch fiddlers, Italian tenors, 
French painters. 

Old Van Veen paid them to be his guests, but he al- 
ways treated them as if they were royalty. Thinking of 
these things, Beals felt that he might be in danger of one 
of Van Veen’s red-hot reprimands if he were niggardly of 
hospitality to this nice young moving-picture artist with 
liis crazy crew. He mumbled cautiously: 

“If I on’y had a line from the old man, I’d let you 
in, in a minute. You understand, don’t you.'^” 

He did not catch Memling’s grateful acknowledgment 
of an inspiration, as he said: “I quite understand. I ad- 
mire your fidelity. I shall tell Roger — er — Mr. Van Veen 
about it when I see him next. I might take it into my 
head to telegraph him. No — well. I’ll think it over. And 
now you’d better run and change your clothes, Mr. Beals, 
or you’ll be catching cold. No, no, don’t leave us in here; 
first, let us out, please, and lock the gate after us. And 
ever so much obliged to you.” 


63 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


CHAPTER XIII 

AN INTERMEZZO 

I T broke the hearts of Short-arm, Gold-tooth, and the 
others to go empty-handed from such a fallow field, 
and to hear the great gate clang behind them. But they 
had sworn the most unquestioning obedience to Memling’s 
commands, and they filed out, like a beaten rabble. 

Officer Dowd met them, and he was plainly on edge 
with jealousy. Memling was weary of turning that crank 
and those foolish, empty spools, but he felt it advisable to 
keep Officer Dowd as a partisan. He suggested another 
event — a daylight burglary. 

“These crime films are immensely popular,” he ex- 
plained. “They’ve driven the melodramas quite out of 
business. I wonder what house we could borrow.” 

“Mrs. Oberf elder lives just a piece off,” suggested 
Dowd. 

“An inspiration!” 

Memling rang Mrs. Oberfelder’s bell, and she came 
to the door, fresh from her own housework. She was over- 
come with chagrin, and explained that it was so hard to 
keep hired girls in Ucayga. Memling told her that to his 
artistic soul a woman was never so beautiful as when she 
was busy about her household tasks. 

“Oh, Mr. Clymer!” she said, and it was unfortunate 
that Mr. Oberfelder was at his tailor shop, or he might 
have tasted the luxury of jealousy for the first time. 

When Memling explained the proposed drama, and 
offered further free tickets, Mrs. Oberfelder felt as hon- 
ored as if a Millet had asked to immortalize her on one 
of his canvases. 


64 } 


An Intermezzo 


She entered into the spirit of the little play, and while 
Memling turned the crank, she came out of the house, 
dressed in her best — this time with her Sunday hat on — 
locked the front door, put the key under the mat, and 
walked down the street, till Memling called to her that 
she had gone far enough. 

Then she made a detour, and came back to join the 
grand stand of spectators back of Memling. Next Slinky, 
Gold-tooth, and Short-arm, in regulation sneak-thief uni- 
form, with caps pulled down, collars pulled up, and black 
throat cloths, approached the house with elaborate cau- 
tion, tried the lower-floor windows, and then shinned up 
the pillars to the roof of the piazza, entered from above, 
and reappeared at the windows to drop out various arti- 
cles, lowering a mattress carefully and throwing down a 
lamp, according to traditions. Memling promised Mrs. 
Oberf elder a new one, as he heard her gasp. 

If Officer Dowd had had more metropolitan experience, 
he would have recognized that the porch-climbing and sec- 
ond-story technique of the three thieves was according to 
the best schools, and was no amateur imitation. 

But he was thinking of his own cues too busily to no- 
tice the work of other members of the cast. He broke in 
before his time, and would have ruined the film, if there 
had been any film to ruin. 

Finally, at Memling’s prompting, he was permitted to 
saunter on the scene, note the suspicious swag, and con- 
ceal himself behind a tree. As Slinky came gum-shoeing 
from the front door. Officer Dowd drew his revolver and 
stood him up. Gold-tooth followed, and was likewise ar- 
rested; then Short-arm made his exit, and was aligned 
with the others. 

“Now, Mrs. Oberf elder, please,” said Memling, and 

65 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


Mrs. Oberfelder hurried down the road, and made her 
reappearance R. U. E., and came to her piazza, where 
Officer Dowd called her attention to the sack of her man- 
sion, and then to his three prisoners, whom he marched off 
down the walk till Memling called out : 

“That will do, thank you!” 

Then this play was over, and Officer Dowd went home 
to his supper, hearing already the cheers of the Nickel- 
orium audiences when they recognized the finest of Ucay- 
ga’s finest at work for their protection. 

The next morning early, a fully uniformed messenger 
boy of about the build of Snubby Nettler rang the bell 
at the big gate of the Van Veen estate, and handed 
Watchman Beals a telegram from Atlantic City: 

Give my friend henry clymer freedom of house and 
grounds allow full inspection of art collection. 

R. Van Veen. 

Beals thought that Clymer must be somebody indeed, 
if old Van Veen would exceed the ten-word limit for him. 

An hour or so later, Beals saw Memling posing a 
group in the distance. He went out to tell him the news. 
The group started away, and Memling after it, lugging 
his camera box. Beals began to trot, then to run. The 
faster Memling flew, the more determined was Beals to 
overtake him with hospitality. 

At length, he caught Memling’s eye, and ran to him, 
brandishing the telegram. Memling glanced over it, and 
smiled. 

“It’s just like dear old Roger. He sent me another.” 

He produced a crumpled message, and gave it to Beals 
to read: 


66 


The Sound-proof Room 

By all means make self at home don’t fail to see art 
gallery have telegraphed instructions watchman see him 
kind regards. Roger. 

Beals beamed on the kinetoscopist, and said: 

“The place is yours, sir. What’s your orders, sir.?” 

“I’d like to do the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ scene for one 
thing, and perhaps another dark picture. The moon was 
so superb, last night, it seems a pity to waste it. Mean- 
while, I might take a look at those pictures and statues.” 

“Come right along, sir. You and your friends.” 

Memling lowered his voice: “I’ll not bring them all, I 
think. I’m afraid they’re not all connoisseurs. But I’d 
like to have Miss Cresap and Herman with me.” 

“Sure !” roared Beals, and added, “Sir.” 

After instructing the rest of the crew to bivouac in 
the vicinity, Memling took Nellie and Slinky along, and 
the watchman threw open the gate, and, later, the huge 
door. 

CHAPTER XIV 
THE SOUND-PROOF ROOM 

T he house was like a gorgeous tomb, cold, spookily* 
dark, and heavy with dust. Every room was a 
silence and a mystery. Beals lighted the gas. He ex- 
plained that the house was furnished with electricity by 
its own dynamo, which was not run in the absence of the 
household. 

Memling and Slinky made mental note of each gas jet. 
The watchman showed an inclination to loiter behind 
with Nellie, or to hurry on ahead with her, and Slinky 
and Memling made long pauses before certain pictures, 

67 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

statues, and cabinets, holding conversations apparently of 
artistic discussion, but probably not. 

Slinky grew impatient at Memling’s delay over some 
of the old Netherlandish masters or the ancient Greek 
figurines. He could not see what was to be found 
in them after one good look. He lacked the artist’s 
dissecting eye. 

“Would you like to see the upstairs rooms said 
Beals. 

“If it’s not too much trouble,” said Memling. 

They were led upstairs through more palatial sumptu- 
osities all yearning with loneliness and disuse. 

“They’s one queer place you’d ought to see,” said 
Beals, with a chuckle. “It’s the old man’s ‘safe-deposit 
vault,’ I call it.” 

He found a key among the many on his ring, and, 
opening a thick door, led them into a room handsomely 
furnished, but without windows of any sort. Beals ex- 
plained that the ventilation was by a series of gratings 
and a chimney to the roof. 

“The old man sometimes has insomnia when Wall 
Street gets on his nerves. He can’t sleep if they’s a speck 
of noise. He’d jump if you dropped a pin on the floor, 
and the sparrers in the morning drive him mad. So he 
built himself this sound-proof room. He can’t hear a 
sound from outside — not if it was a cannon.” 

“And by the same token,” said Memling, “if he were 
to yell his head off in here, he couldn’t be heard outside, 
eh.?” 

“No, I s’pose not,” said Beals. Memling and Slinky 
exchanged one glance. It was enough. 

It was some hours before Memling consented to leave 
the house. Then he strolled about the gardens. 

68 


The Sound-proof Room 


“It must be rather lonesome here for you of nights,” 
said Memling. “Or perhaps you’re married?” 

“Not yet, sir,” said Beals, glancing at Nellie. 

“Aren’t you afraid to be here by yourself? I should 
think you’d be uneasy about burglars.” 

“Not while Mr. Gorgon is around, sir.” 

“And who is Mr. Gorgon ?” 

“The dawg. Kind of a mixture of Great Dane, 
bloodhound, mastiff, and bull.” 

“Sounds rather dangerous.” 

“He’d wake the dead, and eat the living. I’m sorry 
for the man that wanders in here after dark, sir.” 

“And where does Mr. Gorgon live?” 

“I keep him in the stables, in the daytime. Would 
you like to see him, sir? He’s a nice dawg before dark.” 

“I’d love to.” 

So they were all presented to Mr. Gorgon, and he 
fawned upon them when he was satisfied with their cre- 
dentials. 

“I don’t think we’d better try our moonlight pictures, 
after all,” sighed Memling. 

“Why not, sir?” 

“I’m afraid Mr. Gorgon would make mince-meat of my 
actors.” 

“Oh, as for that. I’ll keep him locked up to-night till 
after you’re through.” 

“That’s very kind of you. And where does this road 
lead?” 

“Oh, that leads to the side gate, where the trucks and 
things come in by the back road.” 

Then Memling and Slinky strolled out of Van Veen- 
dom into Ucayga, and Beals proudly showed Officer 
Dowd the telegram. Memling referred to the programme 

69 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

for the evening, and Dowd expressed a willingness to be 
present, but Beals did not accept the invitation to invite 
him in. 

On the way back, Memling explained to Dowd, as he 
had explained to Beals, that instantaneous photographs 
must be taken with especial care in the moonlight. Also 
he was to take a moonlight burglary scene. He regretted 
that Dowd could not be present. And Dowd pouted 
hugely : 

“I wouldn’t care if it was a real burglary. That feller 
Beals is so dumed unpolite to me, I’d like to get even 
with him.” 

CHAPTER XV 

THE GREAT CINEMATOGRAPHIC CRIME 

I N the moon-flooded balcony, Nellie was looking her best. 

She had let her hair fall over her shoulders, and from 
where he stood in the lighted room back of her, Beals was 
saying to Short-arm : 

“She looks good to muh.” 

In the rose garden below, Romeo — Slinky, in tights 
and wig — ^was stretching his hand upward to meet her 
down-stretched hand, and Memling was turning the crank. 
Through the distant palings. Officer Dowd looked envi- 
ously, then went on about his business. 

There was another tableau, with Romeo on the bal- 
cony ledge, and a rope ladder dangling below him as he 
bade farewell to Juliet. Something went wrong with the 
cues, and Memling hurried up to the room to rehearse the 
actors. 

As he entered the chamber above and talked to Beals, 

70 


The Great Cinematographic Crime 

Gold-tooth and two other “strong arms” swarmed up the 
ladder, and cowered in the shadow. 

Slinky Romeo wore a cloak, and took it off to readjust 
it, just as Nellie noted that her slipper had come untied. 
She glanced at Beals, and he gallantly dropped to his 
knees before her. As he bent down. Slinky suddenly 
flung the cloak over his head, and drew it tightly about 
his face. At the same time. Gold-tooth and the second 
and third thugs dashed into the room, and fell on the 
struggling giant. 

Gold-tooth drew from his pocket a short blackjack, 
but Memling caught his arm. Slinky administered the 
necessary repose by smiting the wrestling watchman just 
behind the ear with his naked fist. Beals went to the floor 
with a sliddering wriggle that made Nellie shiver. But 
he was speedily toted to the sound-proof apartment, 
which Slinky opened after some delay in finding the right 
key. 

As the door was about to close on the silent figure, 
Nellie commanded: “Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” 
and she held up the whole crime while she deposited a 
brace of sandwiches she had brought along, and lighted 
the gas for his future comfort. 

Memling understood, and laid an approving hand on 
her shoulder. Then the hermetic door was locked and 
fastened from outside with stout wires from its knob to 
the nearest newel post. 

And now all was feverish activity. Memling directed 
everything. He slashed the old Dutch masters from their 
frames. He wrapped the statuary in venerable rugs 
from the Orient. He handled the Tanagra dolls as if they 
were tiny children, and he swaddled each in some storied 
tapestry from old looms. 


71 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

He forced his nimble aides to put down the gaudy 
knickknacks they valued for their sheen, and to take only 
what he selected. He kept order by threatening what- 
ever punishment came first to mind. 

Meanwhile, Short-arm had been sent to the rear gate, 
which he swung wide to admit a furniture van borrowed 
for the occasion from a local expressman, whom a five- 
dollar deposit had convinced of good faith. 

Hearing the clatter of the horses’ hoofs, Mr. Gorgon, 
from his prison in the stable, set up a ferocious ulula- 
tion. Glancing from a window, Memling faintly made 
out Officer Dowd’s form clinging to the iron palings ; and 
he grew uneasy. A row of neighbors and children had 
also glued itself to every interstice. The frantic alarums 
of the watchdog got on the nerves of the marauders and 
the spectators alike. 

Memling called Slinky to him, and Slinky, clambering 
from a side window, dashed out by the rear gate and 
found his way to a drug store half a mile away, where he 
entered a booth and telephoned the fire department that 
Mrs. Oberf elder’s home was aflame. Then he hastened 
back to the looting of Van Veendom. 

Meanwhile, Memling had established Nellie in com- 
mand of the forces, and, warning her to keep the plun- 
derers careful, he went out with his camera box and set 
up his tripod on the moon-lit lawn. 

He strolled over to where Officer Dowd was growing 
restive, and described the present excitement as a picture 
of the sacking of a castle in ancient England. Dowd vol- 
unteered to come to the rescue, as usual, but Memling ex- 
plained that his costume was anachronistic, and that, be- 
sides, he doubted if the film would be a success, as the 
light was so dim. 


72 


The Great Cinematographic Crime 


He explained that the bundles which were already com- 
ing from the house and disappearing into the van were 
mere dummies supposed to be prisoners, fair maidens, and 
the like. And then, as a last resort, he said : 

“By the way, here are those passes to the Nickelorium, 
next week,” and he placed a few cards in the eager hand 
thrust through the fence. 

As Dowd went to the nearest lamppost to read them, 
Memling went back to the camera box and made a show 
of turning the crank. 

He cursed the carelessness of the looters, and whenever 
one of them stumbled with his precious burden. Mem- 
ling’s heart thumped in his breast. He heard Dowd call- 
ing something to him, and the spectators murmuring sus- 
piciously ; and the dog’s uproar was filling the scene with 
evil portent. He wondered how long the truth could be 
concealed. 

And then the fire bells clamored in the distance, and 
the audience vanished. Moving pictures were fascinating, 
but a fire was irresistible. Just as Slinky came panting 
through a hedge, the last of the plunder was stored 
aboard the van. 

Memling stopped cranking, darted into the house for 
a last survey, stuffed into his pockets a few overlooked 
treasures, and paused to listen to a faint sound from 
above, as of some one pummeling a door. 

Then he turned out the lights, closed the front door, 
and climbed up with the driver. The van, filled with art 
treasure like a Roman galley homeward bound from 
Greece, rolled out of the Van Veen preserves, and the 
yelps of the watchdog died in the far away. 

Now and then, one of the gang was ordered to dis- 
embark and strike for New York alone, by a devious 

73 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

pathway. At one o’clock, the van was halted in a dark 
ravine, and, by the light of an electric flash lamp, Mem- 
ling painted out the name of the “Ucayga Express Co.,” 
and painted on “The Manhattan Delivery Co.” 

At three o’clock, the signs of New York were increas- 
ing upon them, as the heavy-hoofed horses unwound the 
long, slow film of the highway. By the first daylight 
they made out a little platform at the railroad track 
where a colony of large tin cans awaited the first milk 
train. 

Seeing that nobody was near to protest, Memling sug- 
gested that part of the milk cans might be appropriated 
for purposes of disguise. A dozen or more were lashed 
alongside and across the end gate. Thus embellished, the 
treasure ship moved into New York as a member of that 
daily jaded procession of weary horses and drowsy drivers 
that brings the city its nursing bottles in the early gloam- 
ing. 

Slinky had a friend who was a coachman between 
crimes, and, at present, held a position with a wealthy 
family of globe trotters. 

Slinky drove the van into the stable, which was also 
the dwelling of this man. The owners of the stable were 
in Europe, and the coachman hated idleness. So he some- 
times collaborated with Memling and Slinky. 

Seeing the van safely bestowed for the present, and 
feeling that of all the treasures on earth, a little sleep 
would be the most precious, Memling, Nellie, and Slinky 
hurried to the studio, and, dropping severally on what- 
ever offered the first support, fell into the sleep of inno- 
cent laborers, who had earned the wages of repose. 


74 


‘"A Good Thief a Good Salesman'" 


CHAPTER XVI 

“A GOOD THIEF A GOOD SALESMAN” 

W E thieves are sadly misunderstood,” Mr. Dirk Mem- 
ling was saying to a number of peculiar persons 
seated in his studio. “I don’t complain of any misunder- 
standing of our motives, gentlemen. Our motives are as 
bad as we are, and, as Herman would say, we are as bad 
as they make ’em. I refer to the public misunderstand- 
ing of our profession — or trade — or art — or what you 
will.” 

Some of the guests shifted uneasily. They were there 
on business and were eager to be at it. But to Memling 
philosophy was a necessary of life, and he went memling 
on : 

“Those of you gentlemen who can read — and do — 
have doubtless noted in the magazines a great many stories 
devoted to people of our craft. The authors often lead 
their imaginary heroes into the most interesting adven- 
tures and extricate them with the utmost ingenuity. But 
they overlook the most difficult and the only practical part 
of our work — that is, the commercial end. 

“Successful thievery is not a mere matter of enter and 
exit. Your good thief must be a good salesman or his 
risk and his troubles have been mere bravado. 

“Playwriting is one of the few crimes I have never at- 
tempted, but a prominent dramatist told me at the club 
the other night: ‘Any fool can write a play; it takes a 

75 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

genius to sell one.’ So I say : ‘Any fool can steal almost 
anything; it takes a genius to sell it.’ 

“In the case of these magazines thieves I speak of, you 
have doubtless wondered why the authors are so strangely 
reticent about the methods by which their heroes realize 
on their loot. It is because authors are lazy, and selling 
stolen goods is hard. The authors usually ring down 
the curtain on the big situation, and there is no last 
act.” 

“Dat reminds me,” Slinky Green broke in, to interrupt 
the intolerable lecture, “I was to a play once, and at de 
grand smilax in de nex’ to de las’ ack, de villain pulls a 
lever and drops de hero and heroine into de middle of a 
ragin’ blast foinace.” 

The auditors sat forward with eager curiosity. 

Memling smiled indulgently. “A very interesting situ- 
ation. And how did the author get his people out of it.?” 

“Dat’s what I wanta know,” Slinky moaned. “Be- 
tween de acks, a copper reco’nizes me and takes me to de 
station house. I was wanted for sumpum or udder at de 
time — I disremember just what. I begs de cop to leave 
me stay to de finish, but would he.? — nagh!” 

“And you don’t know what happened.?” 

“I never could find out. When I had done me bit up 
de river, de play was ofFen de boards. I’ve ast a hun- 
nerd people, but never met anybody dat could put me next. 
I’ve waked up in de night many’s de time and fought 
about dem guys in de blast foinace, and wondered how 
dey got out. Of course dey did, but how.?” 

There were signs of further restlessness among the 
guests. The discussion seemed to them academic and im- 
material — or as Snubby Nettler put it in his own way: 
“What’s all dis guff gotta do wit’ de price of mutton.? 

76 


''A Good Thief a Good Salesman'" 

What I wanta loin is: Do we get any money for our 
swag, or don’t we?” 

“Dat’s what we all wanta loin,” said Short-arm Clary. 

Mr. Memling echoed: ‘And dat’s — that’s what I want 
to know myself.” 

The others stared at him, pop-eyed and pop-mouthed. 

Snubby expressed the general sentiment: “Well, you 
been engineerin’ everyt’ing so fur, ain’t you?” 

“I have, and I’m proud of it.” 

“Den you’d otta engineer de rest of it.” 

“That’s what I’m trying to do,” said Memling. “But 
there are obstacles. Every great enterprise has its set- 
backs. Ours has come now. But, by the bye, where is 
Nellie?” 

“She went out to scout round a little,” said Slinky. 

“Oh, of course. But as I was saying, gentlemen, 
everything ran as smoothly as the course of false love, as 
smoothly as on our own empty spools.” 

“So far so fine,” said Short-arm. “But what good 
was it to us? We ain’t a cent de better for de job.” 

“Not yet, but remember — we have a van load of price- 
less art works.” 

“Dey’re priceless all right, all right,” growled Short- 
arm. “We ain’t had no price for ’em, dat’s sure.” 

“And ain’t going to get any to my finkin’,” said 
Snubby Nettler. 

“Patience, patience, gentlemen !” Memling insisted. 
“Stealing is one process; selling is quite another. There 
is almost always a hiatus.” 

“Well, I don’t want no hiatus in mine,” said Short- 
arm. “What I want is coosh. I done me work and I 
want me pay. You told us dat we’d be rollin’ in wealf 
if we follered your lead. We done exactly what you said, 

77 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

but I ain’t seen nothin’ to roll in — not so much as a dol- 
lar bill.” 

“All in good time, my boy,” said Memling. “That 
scoundrel Max Strubel promised solemnly to take every- 
thing off our hands at a fair price, but he has backed 
down completely. It is not my fault that he should turn 
out to be a liar and a coward. We might have expected a 
crooked art dealer to be everything that is false, but he 
had never failed me before.” 

Slinky Green muttered: “He’s a yeller quitter and 
he done us doit. I t’ink we gotta right to go and boin 
his shop down over his lyin’ head for him.” 

This proposition met with instant approval. It meant 
revenge, and it meant action; two strong motives among 
such restless temperaments as take to thievery. 

But Memling’s voice was still for a Fabian delay: 

“Let’s not fret over Strubel. He is not worthy of our 
revenge. We must look for somebody else.” 

“Who t’ ’ell is they Short-arm demanded ; and Mem- 
ling explained: 

“There are many crooked dealers in New York giving 
lessons in art to millionaires. We shall find another, but 
we must bide our time. One has no right to expect unin- 
terrupted good luck in this sad world. Indeed, if one does 
not meet with uninterrupted bad luck, one may count one- 
self fortunate.” 

“But when one ain’t had no cash in his kick for two 
weeks, one is apt to get sore on their luck,” said Short- 
arm Clary, wrestling with shadowy syntax and coming 
off worsted. 

Memling went on: “I am exceedingly sorry. I have 
not been lunching at the Astoria myself. I am doing my 
best to find another market, but you must reahze that I 

78 


The Honor of a Thief 

must proceed with extreme caution. To find a man who 
will pay spot cash for objects of virtu that he can sell 
only with delay and danger, is no easy task. It takes 
time.” 

“Takes time.?” echoed Snubby Nettler. “We’ll all be 
doin’ time foist t’ing you know if we don’t get rid of dat 
junk.” 

“De woist of it is,” said Slinky Green, “dat we ain’t 
even had no fun out of it — not a line in a paper. And I 
was certain we’d ’a’ had columns and columns wit scare 
heads in pink letters a foot high.” 

CHAPTER XVII 

THE HONOR OF A THIEF 

T he thief, like other anonymous poets, loves to see his 
work famous, even though himself may prefer ob- 
livion. The cinematographic troupe had looted a mil- 
lionaire’s mansion, and had counted on reading the par- 
ticulars of their masterpiece in every headline. The 
courts have ruled that part of an author’s pay is the pub- 
lication of his work, and a very real portion of the re- 
ward for the danger run by thieves is the luxury of sit- 
ting in obscure safety and reveling over the clamorous 
news of blindfolded detectives and romancing reporters. 

But the Van Veen robbery, which they had counted on 
for a national sensation, was not even mentioned. It was 
a shocking oblivion, a sort of treachery on the part of the 
newspapers. 

Memling tried to explain : 

“The watchman Beals had doubtless learned from ex- 
perience that old Van Veen objects to any of his em-^ 

79 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

ployees tampering with publicity. When he was released 
from the sound-proof compartment where he had been 
locked during the robbery, he doubtless telegraphed his 
master a full account and asked for instructions. Old 
Van Veen doubtless ordered him to say nothing to any- 
body except the private detectives.” 

“Maybe he’s dead,” said Snubby as he glanced over 
his left shoulder uneasily. “Maybe he starved or smud- 
dered in dat compartment. You know it was sealed emeti- 
cally.” 

“No fear,” said Memling. 

But there was fear, uncanny foreboding, a sense of 
centipedes betwixt the shoulder blades. 

In any case the cinematographers did not like this 
silence. It was mysterious, ominous, appalling. The 
newspapers gave no clue to the clues the detectives were 
following. Even in the distorted press reports there 
is ordinarily some guidance for the hunted criminal. 
But this midnight hush had weight and terror as an 
Egyptian darkness. The suspense was almost unendur- 
able. 

The gang was like a squad of miners who have lighted 
a fuse and seen it scutter into the powder barrel without 
provoking any explosion. They listened, and waited, and 
wondered. Every moment seemed an age, yet nobody 
dared go near the powder barrel to see what was the mat- 
ter. 

“It gives me de creepsh,” said Gold-tooth Lesher. “I 
can’t get it off me mind. Itsh like de time when I had 
’em — and had ’em bad. I kept sheeing shings every- 
where. And now every time I hear a footshtep behind 
me, me shoulder itches like a detectuff was jusht goin’ to 
lay a hand on me and shay: ‘Come round to de shtation 

80 


The Honor of a Thief 

housh, Gold-tooth, de old man wantsh to have a word wit’ 
you.’ ” 

Everybody shuddered and Slinky whimpered: “It’s 
sumpum awful.” 

“And it ain’t on’y de detectuffsh I’m shinkin’ of,” said 
Gold-tooth. “I ain’t sure of our own shelves. Who knows 
but one of ush might shqueal on de whole bunsh.?” 

Short-arm Clary nodded. “That’s the worst of this 
business. One thief can’t trust another as far as he can 
t’row a bull by the tail.” 

“Talk about honor among sheaves,” roared Gold- 
tooth, “there ain’t no shush shing — only in booksh maybe. 
Like as not we gotta coupla stool pidzheons among ush 
right now.” 

This imputation brought Slinky Green up standing, 
and with him Snubby Nettler and others of the gang in 
congress. Fists were brandished and loud threats voiced. 
Thieves, of all people, cannot afford to have their honor 
questioned. 

Gold-tooth faced them down with magnificence. “Ash 
the Good Book shays: ‘The guilty fleash when nobody 
purshoes.’ ” 

Nobody there could afford to resist the Bible, and 
Gold-tooth went on: “I ain’t named a shingle name, 
gentsh. For all you guysh knowsh, I might be a shtool 
pidzheon myshelf. All I want to shay ish, dat delay ish 
dangheroush, and we ain’t makin’ nuttin’ by it. It’s high 
time for shomebody to shpeak the troosh plain.” 

“You better shut up den. Gold-toot’,” snorted Slinky 
Green sarcastically. “You’ll never speak plain till you 
steal a set of ivories offen some guy dat sleeps wit’ his 
mout’ open.” 

But Short-arm Clary rqse to Lesher’s rescue. “Aw, 

81 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


lettum alone!” he roared. “He’s on’y trjin’ to say what 
all of us knows. We done a neat piece of work. We 
made a perfect getaway, and we ain’t got a cent out of it, 
and we’re all scared to deaf. Like as not dat watchman 
is dead an’ we’ll all go to de chair for murderin’ him.” 

So tense was the feeling, so imminent the mutiny, that 
when the door opened suddenly and a figure appeared un- 
expectedly most of the guests made for the windows. 
Snubby Nettler was half through the sash when his back- 
ward glance showed him that the newcomer was Nellie. 

She was out of breath and frightened speechless. The 
rapturously relieved gang rushed to greet her. One 
brought her a chair, another guided her to it, a third 
fanned her, a fourth brought her something in a little 
glass, and another plied her with questions. Finally she 
responded enough to gasp: 

“I’ve seen him.” 

“Who.^^” said everybody. 

“Beals 1” 

“Beals.?” 

“Beals! Nearly bumped into him. You see, zize cross- 
ing Sixf Avenyeh keepin’ my eyes open fer coppers or 
plain-clothes men, I hoid voices behind me. One of ’em 
says : ‘I’ve kicked myself all the way down from Ucayga.’ 
That woid ‘Ucayga’ went through me like a knife. I stops 
in the dark by one of the El pillars like I was waitin’ for 
a Fifty-ninf Street car. As the men passed me I hear 
the same fellow say in’ : ‘They called her Nellie. I’d 
know her among a million. She played me for a Reub, and 
I fell for her. But she had enough heart in her to leave 
me bread and water. The rest of the crooks would have 
let me die like a mad dog. I’d like to keep her out of it, 
but I’m going to land the men folks in Sing Sing or bust 

82 


The Honor of a Thief 

a rib.’ He brushed me with his elbow as he passed and 
turned to say: ‘Beg pardon, madam,’ and went on with- 
out even suspicioning me.” 

She smiled, a little tenderly, at the memory of the 
compliment and of the escape. But the others were chew- 
ing hard on the word “Sing Sing.” It made them peevish. 
Gold- tooth glared at Nellie till she lowered her eyelids in 
confusion. 

“You shee! you shee!” he cried. “What did I shay 
about shtool pidzheons.? We got one in our midst a’ready. 
She’s gone dippy over that washman Bealsh.” 

“Have not!” cried Nellie, fisting her knuckles in his 
face. “I don’t care — that! for him, but he was a poifect 
gempmum to me, and I’m glad he got out.” 

“You’re glad he got out !” roared Shnky, “so’s we can 
get in, eh.?” 

“Ah, go wan !” roared Nellie. 

“I told you sho !” howled Gold-tooth, so gratified at 
being proved a prophet that he forgot his alarm. “She 
wants ush all to go to Shing Shing.” 

Nellie flatly told him where else he might go. The 
meeting was shocked at profanity from a lady, and Mem- 
ling felt that the only preventive of a riot was a dispersal. 
He restored calm enough to explain that in two days he 
wuuld try to have some money for everybody and ad- 
journed the meeting for forty-eight hours. 

The guests went out of his house as stealthily as if 
they had been going into it, and no policeman noted their 
quality or quantity. 


83 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


CHAPTER XVIII 

HALF A RUG 

T he next day Memling was abroad early making in- 
quest of" the shady art dealers in the hope of find- 
ing one who would buy a huddle of master works for a 
song. His errand was unsuccessful, and he came back to 
the studio disheartened. 

Nellie and Slinky had been busy in his absence. They 
had taken various statuary out of bundles. On the floor 
were three or four rugs stolen merely as wrappers for the 
marbles. 

One of the objects was a complicated bust of Othello, 
with black marble for the face, alabaster for the robe, 
and lapis lazuli for the jeweled neck chain. 

Memling was a purist in sculpture, and he roared to 
Slinky : 

“Take that marble chromo out of here. That’s some 
of your work, Herman. I told you that if you ever ex- 
pressed an art opinion and it was wrong I’d throw you 
out.” 

“I ain’t expressed no opinion,” said Slinky hastily. 
“Your selection was an opinion,” said Memling. “You 
stole that awful thing from Van Veen because you liked 
it, and you wrapped it in that old half of a rug because 
you liked that. Throw them both out.” 

Nellie interposed. 

“You know more about sculpture than what I do, Dirk, 
but you don’t know the foist thing about rugs. That 
piece of carpet is a beaut, and no mistake.” 

84 


Half a Rug 

Memling knew that he knew nothing about the work 
of the loom, and he withered. 

“Leave the rug on the floor, then, but get that abom- 
inable marble goulash out of my sight.” 

“Where shall I stow it.^^” said Slinky. 

“Throw it at a cat or give it to the policeman, but 
don’t let me see it again.” 

Slinky hustled the Moor’s head into concealment, but 
the rug was suffered to remain. 

All that afternoon Nellie tried to explain to Memling 
why the fabric on the floor was commendable. But he was 
a sculptor, devoted to simplicity, unity, and strength. 
He could not grasp any principle in the design of the 
rug. 

“It has no design at all,” he said. “The color scheme 
isn’t bad, it’s rather inoffensive — almost mellow. But 
that’s the work of the dirt, I’m sure.' Now, that other rug, 
I can see.” He pointed to a huge Feraghan, woven in a 
factory and washed in coffee. 

Nellie would not permit this huge cloth to be praised. 

“I’ll get a rug expoit in here,” she stormed, “and you 
can try to sell him the two of them.” 

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” said Memling. “Do 
you want to have me suspected of being in the rug-selling 
business First thing you know he’ll be demanding the 
pedigree, and then we’re gone.” 

It was hunger that ended the wrangle, and the hunger 
was only partially satisfied at a cheap table d’hote. Mem- 
ling was not in funds, and he hated the woeful tablecloths 
and the rust-stained napkins. But the devil was driving, 
and he was forced to be content with tiny portions served 
on suspicious ware. 

The next day he resumed his canvass of the approach- 

85 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

able art dealers. But times were dull, and he could not 
awaken even an interest in his merchandise. 

Late that afternoon he came back to his studio more 
dejected and lonely than before. The sunset stretched 
along the west in a rug of such glory that its upper 
fringe reached the north light of his studio and steeped 
the floor in a winish glow. 

Suddenly Nellie arrived. She had a defiant look on 
her face, and she said: 

“I saw a rug peddler on the street going into the 
house next door, and I told him to come here when he was 
through.” 

“A rug peddler Good Lord, Nellie, I’m not buying 
rugs. I’ve got a house full of fool things, and I was 
wondering where I could get our dinner for nothing — or 
what amounts to the same thing, have it charged.” 

“You don’t have to buy any rugs,” said Nellie. “But 
you can pretend to look ’em over, can’t you.? And then, 
just kind of offhanded, ask him what he thinks of those 
two — ^your big ugly blanket and my little half of a rug. 
I’ll bet you anything you say, he chooses the one I like.” 

“Since neither of us has a cent the betting is safe. 
The one that wins loses.” 

The bell rang and Nellie brought in a cringing Ar- 
menian half hidden like a little pack mule under a huge 
saddle-bag. 

He dumped his stock in trade on the floor, and began 
to undo the fastenings. Memling was so sorry for him 
with his hungry zeal, and so ashamed of posing as a pur- 
chaser, that he refused to play the game. 

“Don’t untie that truck,” he said gruffly, “I wouldn’t 
pay a dollar for the stair carpet that Solomon rolled out 
for the Queen of Sheba.” 


86 


Half a Rug 


The Armenian’s flicker of hope died from his swart 
face, and he bent to pluck his burden from the floor. His 
face almost touched the little semi-rug. He paused like 
a statue of effort. His mouth widened, his nostrils wid- 
ened, his eyes enlarged. 

Then he fell on his knees, and caught the rug in 
twitching fingers, reverently testing the woof and mur- 
muring words that Memling and Nellie could not under- 
stand. 

“I told you so,” said Nellie. “Maybe you’ll believe me 
next time. I bet it’s worth a hundred bones at least.” 

With some difficulty Memling persuaded the fellow to 
translate his rhapsody into onerous English. 

“Where you get theese rug, Meester Jantleman?” the 
kneeling peddler asked. 

Memling did not change color as he answered: 

“I lived in Italy for some years.” 

The Armenian nodded. 

“Dat’s all right. Long tarn ago the Eetalians ships 
come to Turkey and all over our land. They make forts 
at Galata and Stamboul and they buys the wahnderful 
rugs. How much you pay for thees rug, yes 

“Yes,” said Memling with a smile of evasion. 

The Armenian appreciated the spirit. To him bar- 
gaining was a fine art. He felt that he had a fencer 
worth crossing swords with. 

“You don’t want to sell him, no?” 

“N-no,” said Memling, but not with finality. 

The Armenian understood this, too. It was plainly 
a shrewd man’s invitation to proceed. 

“You know who makes thees rug, maybe? Yes? No?” 

“Naturally,” said Memling. 

The spaciousness of the room in pigeonholed New 

87 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

York, the sumptuousness of the studio’s appointments 
deceived the peddler. He thought he was in a rich man’s 
house. But he knew that rich men know the value of 
things better than poor men. 

“You would not sell me theese rug for any price.?” 

Memling had acquired some skill in bargaining with 
receivers of stolen goods. He answered: 

“Everything has its price if you can pay it.” 

This also the Armenian believed. He hesitated a while, 
then he said carefully : 

“Did I offer you feefty dollars for thees, what you 
say .?” 

“I should say : ‘Get out, I’m busy.’ ” 

The Armenian threw him a look of respect. “Did I 
offer you wan hoonderd dollars ” 

“I’d say : ‘Get out, I’m busy.’ ” 

“Two hoonderd ” Memling frowned — “and 

feefty.” Memling turned away. “Five hoonderd !” Mem- 
ling paused. His back was to the Armenian, his startled 
face was not to be seen. But he shrugged his shoulders 
and forced a contemptuous laugh. 

“Wan t’oosand,” the Armenian persisted, wheedling. 

Memling was thinking hard. What was worth pick- 
ing off a floor for a thousand dollars in cash must be 
worth a great price. He took the plunge. He whirled 
on his heel with simulated irritation. 

“I tell you I’m busy. Do you think I’m fool enough 
to make you a present of a rug like that.?” 

The Armenian gasped: 

“You call wan t’oosand dollars a present!” 

“For a rug of that period, yes.” 

“But it is only half a rug. The other half is in — • 
well, I know.” 


88 


Half a Rug 


“So do I,” said Memling. 

“My brother has search’ the world for this half? If 
I should offer twanty-five hoonderd, what you say?” 

“I’d say — oh, what’s the use — you haven’t got money 
enough to buy it.” 

The sweat was gleaming on the glossy black hide. 

“I got — ^t’ree t’oosand dollars here. I could get 
mooch more.” 

Memling laughed incredulously. The Armenian looked 
round with caution, then dug out from somewhere a par- 
cel of bills. 

Memling could hardly believe his eyes. He laughed. 
“You don’t look it. But how much have you got?” 

“T’ree t’oosand dollars. But I can get more from 
my brother in Pheeladelphia. I could be here again in 
two, t’ree days.” 

Memling thought swiftly. In the old years when his 
art was sculpture, he had known people to talk big com- 
missions and promise to come back. They never came 
back. This man would never come back. Memling de- 
cided at once : 

“Oh, well, since you’ve got your heart set on the rug, 
give me what money you have and take it.” 

The Armenian shivered with triumph, and crammed 
the bills in Memling’ s hand with such speed that the 
sculptor almost repented his haste in the bargain. Still, 
the 'cash was a consolation. Three thousand dollars was 
just three thousand dollars better than the nothing he 
had had. 

He shoved the roll into his coat pocket carelessly, and, 
taking up a book, sank into a chair with a yawn. 

The Armenian, hissing with delight, rolled up the rug 
as if it were something super-sacred. When he had it 

89 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

safe under his arm he returned to the peddler he had been, 
and said hungrily: 

‘‘Maybe you buy some other nice rug cheap. I got 
here beautifool old prayer rug from Kulah, a seelk Ladik 
that make the beautiful lady’s little feet happy.” He 
looked at Nellie bewitchingly. “And I got a Yomud, and 
two really truly Bergamos.” 

But Memling said : “Better get out or I’ll change my 
mind and take back the one I gave you.” 

The Armenian lost no time in vanishing. 

Memling lifted the weighty roll of bills from his 
sagging pocket, but forgot to gloat over it, as he 
mused : 

“I wonder what kind of rug it was.? Some of those 
historic things bring great prices. I suppose the poor 
dog that wove it lived on a little corn meal for years while 
he made it — and ground the corn himself. I’d give an 
arm to know what the story of that rug was — but I was 
afraid to ask.” 

Nellie was a bit uneasy. 

“Do you suppose old Van Veen will trace it.?” 

“Nonsense. Those plutocrats never know what they’ve 
got. I’ll bet I could sell old Van Veen half of his own 
paintings and he’d never recognize them. That’s why I 
felt it my duty to rob him. It’s like putting a miser’s 
hoard in circulation.” 

Memling was so elated over his success that he felt a 
millionaire. With a disdainful magnificence all his own, 
he plucked off the outer five-hundred-dollar bill as if it 
were a dingy lettuce leaf and tossed it to Nellie. 

“There’s your commission, my dear. If it hadn’t been 
for you I should not have had this to show to that gang 
of mutineers.” 


90 


Half a Rug 

“Are you going to divide even with them?” Nellie 
asked. 

“Divide even with those unwashed illiterates! Nellie, 
you astonish me. I shall tell them that I sold the rug for 
a thousand dollars — and I’ll divide that even with them.” 

Nellie stared at him and blushed for him. 

“I didn’t think it of you, Dirk,” she said. “I thought 
you was above crooked work.” 

Memling flushed at the rebuke. Then he smiled a 
rather harsh smile and spoke in words hard and rough like 
marble chips: 

“Nellie, when I was an honest man I was an honest 
man. And the world cheated me. My own State cheated 
me. A gang of politicians ruined my life and my ambi- 
tion and my sacred art in the name of graft. And nobody 
came to my rescue. I became a thief. I’m a good thief. 
It’s a thief’s business to steal, and I’m attending strictly 
to business. Business men gouge each other. How ridicu- 
lous for a thief not to steal from a thief. Besides, if I 
divided all this money among stupid thugs like Short-arm 
Clary and Snubby Nettler, they’d be drunk and talkative 
for a few days, and then just where they were. 

“I’ll give them a part of this. The next part of the 
loot I sell they shall have a part of, too, and so on in 
installments. The Cinematographic Crime shall amount 
almost to a pension. But as to playing fair with them, 
Nellie — nay, nay I You and I will spend our shares grace- 
fully, artistically — and not fret over the square deal for 
the other thieves. Slinky shall have a good share for 
friendship’s sake. But remember what dear old Gold- 
tooth Lesher said only yesterday : ‘Talk about honor 
among sheaves, there ain’t no shush shing — only in booksh 
maybe.’ Let’s go to dinner. What’s the best place?” 

91 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


CHAPTER XIX 
WHAT NEXT? 

D irk MEMLING’S delight in exchanging the dilapi- 
dated half of a stolen and despised rug for three 
thousand dollars was almost ruined by his tormented de- 
sire to know what had given the rug its amazing value in 
the eyes of the shabby Armenian who bought it. 

Curiosity gnawed on Memling’s heart like an etcher’s 
acid biting a copper plate. But the Armenian had gone 
as mysteriously and as irretraceably as the rug he wor- 
shiped and ravished away. The only proof of the trans- 
action was the lump of governmental paper. The bills 
were very dirty and very soggy, but very real. 

Memling washed his hands every time he handled them. 
They did not affect his conscience so unpleasantly. His 
cronies, Slinky Green and Nellie Gaskell, were so over- 
joyed at the sudden rush of money to the vacuum in the 
treasury that they never worried a whit over the rug’s 
further history, past or future. 

“De main t’ing,” said Slinky, “is dat I swiped it offen 
old Van Veen’s floor and you passed it on to a guy what 
done a disappear, leavin’ behind a haystack of long green 
dat has all de aroma of new-mown hay. We got it for 
next to nuttin’, and we sold it for more’n a good deal; 
and dat’s what I call friendly finance. Forget de rug, Mr. 
Memling, and pass on to de next article of swag. In de 
woids of de auctioneer, ‘Goin’ — goin’ — ^went! to de guy 
from Armenia.’ Next, ladies and gents, I wanta call your 

92 


What Next? 


attention to a coupla dozen udder master woiks of paintin’ 
and sculpcher by — who fell is dey by?” 

Memling smiled at his enthusiasm. 

“Those canvases are by Terborg and Van Mieris, and 
those two statues are by Carpeaux and Dubois.” 

Slinky shook his head over the hard words; but the 
spirit of joy was at large within him. He mounted the 
model stand and imitated the hoarse minstrels of the auc- 
tion shops. 

“Step up close, ladies and gents, and make sure dat 
dese canwases is hand painted. Dese dagoes has hard 
names, but dey could wopse a brush around sumpum 
grand. We have here a landscape by Mister Chauncey 
Toiboig, de champeen lightweight brush wrastler of Wil- 
liamsboig. De scene represents George Washin’ton cross- 
in’ de Harlem River, taken by Mister Toiboig’s own 
movin’-picture machine and colored by hand. After dat 
I will ast youse to kindly bid on Mister Hoibert Van 
Smear’s portrait of ‘Wenus takin’ a bat’,’ and next comes 
a coupla statutes by Monseer Carpoo and Dooboy, repre- 
sentin’ nuttin’ in pertickler, wit’ nuttin’ much on. And 
now we retoin to de Toiboig pitcher. How much am I 
bid? Do I hear a million bones for a starter? I’m lis- 
tenin’ — do I hear it.^^” 

Those were great days in the studio. The three thieves 
had reached the heights of rapture. They had sold part 
of their loot for a high price. They had a mass of other 
loot whose value Hope, the auctioneer, rated at a fabulous 
sum. They had cheated their comrades in crime of their 
fair share, and they had the final bliss of terror lest at any 
moment the detectives might pounce upon them and pre- 
vent them from enjoying the fruits of their toil. 

Their anxiety was increased by the knowledge that 

93 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Gold-tooth Lesher, Short-arm Clary, Snubby Nettler, and 
the others who had assisted in the great cinematographic 
robbery were spending their share of the swag in riotous 
living and in the consumption of expensive and unusual 
wines which would render them irresponsible, conspicuous, 
and communicative. 

What secrets those loose tongues might betray in their 
boastful bravado, who could tell? Who could tell into 
what treacherous ears those garrulous mouths might 
pour the story of their exploits? Memling had given 
them only a part of what he had promised them, but 
his only remorse was that he had not given them 
even less. 

The more they pondered the uncertainty of their con- 
cealment the more eager the three cronies were to dispose 
of the greater treasures remaining and flee from danger. 
As they estimated it, they would realize money enough to 
keep them all in luxury for years. Slinky was for a trip 
to South America, but Memling longed to return to 
Europe with its art temples and its precious atmospheres 
so congenial to his soul. 

Discretion cautioned unusual care in every step, but 
success intoxicated them to rashness. Their assets were 
liabilities, until they were turned into cash. How was 
that to be done? 

Slinky eventually sweat out an idea, but he would not 
disclose it until he had tested its value. He said he would 
be out of town all the next day. Memling had no schemes 
at all. The great empty studio would have seemed to be 
an ideal place for meditation, but its very cavernous silence 
bewildered his mind. Being a city soul, he found that his 
truest solitudes were to be attained in a crowd. He could 
think best in a clatter. After a night of restless tossing 

94 


An Unexpected Encounter 

and vain cogitation, and a morning of no better success, 
he decided to take his luncheon at his club. 


CHAPTER XX 
AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER 


T hough the Mummers Club had its origin as a meet- 
ing place of stage people, so many editors, maga- 
zinists, artists, and art critics had flocked to it that it had 
become a cuckoo’s nest of everything that was not 
dramatic. 

There was a club saying: 

“The best thing about the Mummers is that you never 

meet any one of those actors there.” 

The club had achieved what the millennium promised. 
In its luxurious Eden the literary lion and the editorial 
lamb sat down together, the artistic leviathan and the 
swordfish critic swam at peace. 

One of the best-liked members was Dirk Memling. No- 
body there imagined that he was a thief by trade. He 
was known to be a sculptor of gifts, and his talents were 
romancified by the melancholy veil of his early tragedy. 
Time had sweetened it into a legend whose pathos had 
become poetry, an elegy of art. 

He was pointed out to visitors as one of the landmarks 
of the club, and his story was told in whispers of awe, 
of how he had won a commission to execute a pediment 
group for a new State capitol and had begun his work 
with supreme ambition and success, when all projects were 
stopped by the exposure of huge graft in the construction 
department with its side door into politics. The capitol 

95 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

had been completed, but over the forest of columns where 
the Memling group was to have stood yawned a huge tri- 
angle — an empty sepulcher of hopes. 

The visitors were informed that Memling’s heart was 
bankrupted with his purse, and he did no more great 
works. How he lived nobody knew, for he never exhibited 
anything. It was surmised that he gained commissions 
for portrait busts or for interior decorations of rich men’s 
houses — for these were the bread and butter of most 
artists; the sculpture and the easel pictures that won 
notoriety at the galleries being usually no more than a 
man’s press work, his publicity exploitation of himself. 

But no one questioned Memling, and he found in the 
club a haven from his association with the illiterate and 
uncouth partners in his true livelihood. At the Mummers 
the talk was literary and artistic, and Memling could hold 
his own with the best of New York’s conversation experts. 

On this day he preferred not to talk. He chose a 
small table in a corner overlooking the garden. The chat- 
ter of the other members made a pleasantly murmurous 
background like a distant surf, and the plat du jour was 
corned beef and cabbage, a light New England refection 
which he had found strangely conducive to free thought — 
possibly because it kept his internal mechanism so intensely 
busy that it left his mind full play. 

He was just acquiring a few shreds of ideas that 
promised well, when Herbert Haslam, a caustic art re- 
viewer on one of the daily papers, came up, and, indicating 
the empty chair, asked what is technically known as a 
foolish question: 

“Are you alone.?” 

“Very much,” said Memling. 

“May I join.?” 


96 


An Uneccpected Encounter 

“Delighted,” said Memling — who was not delighted at 
all, for Herbert Haslam was known as the “Terrible 
Talker,” the “Champion Chinner of the Club.” A town 
wit had once put a placard on one of the club doors, “Exit 
in case of Haslam.” Haslam talked wisely, but too well, 
too much. 

Memling resigned himself to an avalanche of words. 
They would come from the heights, but they would come 
in avalanche. To-day, however, Haslam was not at all 
himself. He was amazingly silent. He murmured: 

“It’s a nice thing about this club, that a poor wretch 
of a critic can meet you men who are doing things and 
show you that he is human.” 

Memling answered : “Especially if he learns inci- 
dentally that his victims are human, too.” 

Haslam smiled sadly. 

“Victims I never roasted anything of yours.” 

“You’ve never had the chance,” said Memling. 

“That’s so. Why don’t you exhibit 

“What’s the use.^^” 

“You do private work mostly, eh.?”’ 

“Private work exclusively.” 

“What are you doing now.?” 

“Resting. I’ve just finished a millionaire.” 

“Indeed. Who was it.?” 

“I don’t like to boast.” 

“Gad, but you are modest. A sort of confidential 
sculptor to the rich, eh.?” 

“That’s one way to put it.” 

Seeing that Haslam w^as in a reticent humor and evi- 
dently suffering from some distress, Memling fiattered 
himself that he would get off easily. He hastened to order 
his coffee and cheese with Bar le Due. 

97 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

But just as he was hurrying them down, who should 
stroll up but Clifford Girdlestone. He was dragging a 
chair after him. He was another who did much talking — 
he had little else to do. 

“May I j oin you he asked ; and Memling answered : 

“As one of the few surviving actors in the club, I sup- 
pose we ought to treat you kindly. What’ll you have.?” 
Memling was standing treat lavishly these days, being in 
funds. 

“A green mint,” sighed Girdlestone. 

Like an echo came a sough of despondence from Has- 
1am. 

“What’s the matter with you two men .?” said Memling. 
“Have you both been to Woodlawn?” 

Girdlestone groaned: “You’d sigh, too, if you were 
an actor in the worst season in stage history.” 

Memling smiled incredulously. “So far as I can judge 
from the theatrical wails, every season is the worst in 
theatrical history.” 

“This one really is. For thirty weeks last year I 
played at good salary. This year I was in three failures, 
rehearsing nine weeks in all, buying three hundred dol- 
lars’ worth of costumes and playing exactly five weeks on 
salary out of the fifty-two.” * 

“How do you keep from starving.?” 

“I don’t,” said Girdlestone dismally. “I’ve been dead 
for three months.” 

Haslam, being of an analytical nature, asked: 

“What’s the cause of the theatrical slump?” 

“Moving pictures !” 

Memling started. His own performance with the cine- 
matograph was too fresh in his past to be a matter of 
easy thought with him. He managed to ask : 

98 


An Unexpected Encounter 

“What have moving pictures to do with — I believe you 
call it ‘the legit’?” 

Girdlestone answered with a roar: “What have po- 
tato bugs to do with potatoes? What did poison have to 
do with the death of HamleVs father? They’re killing 
the drama, that’s all.” He thumped the table so hard 
that he jiggled half of his mint essence out of the glass 
thimble. He regarded it with enlarged sorrow. 

Haslam groaned a deeper groan, and said: 

“Moving pictures have been my ruin, too.” 

Girdlestone, almost with professional jealousy, glow- 
ered at Haslam: 

“How could the devilish things affect you?” 

“Well, you see it was this way. Old Roger Van Veen, 
the millionaire, had a big art collection up at his summer 
palace in Ucayga. I was asking him what he had there, 
and he said he didn’t know. He has two or three homes 
so full of masterpieces he doesn’t know half of them by 
name. I told him he ought to have a catalogue made of 
them. I described the artistic volumes that some of the 
millionaires have had privately printed, and I told him 
that I myself had made the catalogue of the art treasures 
of Richard Bamfield.” 

“The big gambler?” from Girdlestone. 

“The big gambler,” said Haslam. “So old Van Veen 
got jealous and decided that he must have the most ar- 
tistic catalogue ever printed. He asked me what I would 
charge to compile the book. I set a fancy price, and he 
nabbed it.” 

Girdlestone grew impatient: “What’s all this got to 
do with moving pictures?” 

Haslam explained: 

“Just as I was packing up to go to Ucayga, along 

99 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

came a band of thieves with an alleged moving-picture 
machine and pretended to take pictures round the place. 
They got the watchman in their toils, sent him a fake 
telegram from Van Veen admitting them to his palace, 
and once they were inside, gagged and bound the watch- 
man, stuffed him into Van Veen’s sound-proof sleeping 
room, and carried off the art treasures one and all — even 
to the rugs.” 

“The blackguards !” roared Girdlestone. “It’s just 
like those moving-picture fiends. They’d do anything !” 

Memling was flushed with excitement. His crime 
sounded rather ugly as described by an outsider. He 
gulped another cup of black coffee before he found nerve 
to ask: 

“Haven’t they arrested the robbers yet?” 

“Not yet,” said Haslam. “They’ve got all the public 
and half the private detectives after them. They’ll catch 
them eventually. But meanwhile the scoundrels have 
stolen my job away from me. And I had planned to take 
my wife and kiddies on a fine vacation on that money. 
Now we’ll stick in this hot town all summer.” 

Memling realized with a sickening at the heart how 
far-reaching and deep-ramifying are the evils and hurts 
that follow crime. He felt a flash of impulse to confess 
to Haslam: 

“I’m the moving-picture fiend myself. I’ve got most 
of Van Veen’s pictures, and statues, and rugs in my pos- 
session. Take them back and go ahead with your old 
catalogue.” 

It was a beautiful impulse that floated into his heart — 
white as a snowflake. It lived just about as long. Mem- 
ling realized at once how intricately he had tangled a dozen 
other souls in his crime, men like Slinky, and Gold-tooth 

100 


An TJnecc'pected Encounter 

Lesher, and Short-arm Clary, and the girl, Nellie Gaskell, 
and others who had trusted him and whose exposure would 
be a peculiarly ugly treachery. 

So the beautiful impulse melted and left no trace. 
Haslam had paid no attention to Memling’s preoccupation. 
He and Girdlestone were exchanging curses against the 
moving-picture craze and all its demons. Memling left 
them to their anathemas and went his way. He walked the 
park through and through trying to work out a plan for 
selling the loot safely, but ideas evaded him like the spar- 
rows, fluttering about his head and feet, yet refusing to 
be captured. 

That evening he returned to the club for dinner. Has- 
lam and Girdlestone were still there. They had adjourned 
to the barroom, and were supporting each other against 
its ledge, while they thickly described to the amiable bar- 
keeper what evils the moving pictures had wrought in a 
hitherto peaceful world. They were both talking at once, 
and there was hardly a fault to he found with existence 
that they did not blame to the moving picture — the devil’s 
own machine, the cinematograph — or “shinnymassograss” 
— as Girdlestone was pronouncing it by now. 

The barkeeper went on polishing glasses, and with the 
perfect courtesy of barkeepers, murmuring “Yes, sir,” 
and “That’s so, sir,” every now and then. 

Memling left the twins of misery to their own bitter- 
ness and went up to his dinner. The small tables were all 
filled. Garrod, the painter, beckoned him to an empty 
place next him at the long table. A number of strange 
faces were there, but the conversation was general, as 
usual, and, as usual, no introductions were made — except 
perhaps to one’s elbow neighbor. It was assumed that 
everybody present was a member, or a member’s guest. 

101 


. The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Eventually the talk drifted round to paintings, and the 
names of various old and new masters were ping-ponged 
about. One small, elderly and unimportant-looking man 
whom Memling had not seen there before took a lively in- 
terest in the conversation, but seemed to rate the painters 
chiefly by the prices they had brought at the latest auc- 
tions. 

Garrod leaned close to whisper in Memling’s ear: 

“That old dub seems to run a sort of Bradstreet’s for 
old masters. Who is he, anyway?” 

“I didn’t get his name,” Memling whispered back. 

After dinner the group gradually dissolved and reas- 
sembled in the lounging room ; the names of great painters 
were bandied about with the prejudices and the familiar- 
ities with which the general public talks of famous ball 
players or prize fighters. 

“I think Rembrandt is a fine painter,” said the dapper 
little stranger, as if he were uttering a new thing. “I 
have several examples of his work.” 

“Are you sure?” said Garrod cynically. 

“Of course, I’m sure. Didn’t I pay big prices for 
them?” 

“That proves nothing,” said Garrod. “It is estimated 
that there are thirty thousand forgeries of Rembrandt in 
existence — mostly in America.” 

“Good heavens !” gasped the stranger. He looked as 
if some one had told him that the subtreasury had gone 
into bankruptcy. 

Garrod said: “I don’t care so much for the big fel- 
lows that everybody knows and copies. I prefer some of 
the old masters that the man in the street never heard of 
— the little Dutchmen for instance — like Terborsr and 
Van Mieris and ” 


102 


An Unexpected Encounter 

“They were mighty big little Dutchmen,” said Mem- 
ling. 

“They were giants in miniature,” said Garrod. “Why, 
Van Mieris could paint a glow of sunlight shining into a 
little room or a little hall just seen through a half-open 
door, and you’d want to cry, it wasi so beautiful ; and Ter- 
borg could paint a pair of boots, or a forearm, or a 
woman’s back hair, or a piece of plain wall so marvelously 
that you couldn’t tell which of them had the most soul. 
Isn’t that so, Memling?” 

Memling said that it was so. 

The dapper individual gasped: “Indeed! I don’t 
think I have any of their works. Are they to be had in 
this country, do you suppose.?” 

Garrod exclaimed: “He doesn’t think he has any of 
them! Imagine owning a Van Mieris and not knowing 
it !” Then he dropped the inhospitable sarcasm. “Yes, 
they turn up in the market now and then. They’re pretty 
safe purchases, because the forgers and imitators and 
fakers haven’t paid much attention to them. Isn’t that so, 
Memling .?” 

Memling agreed that it was so. 

“I wonder where I could get some of them,” said the 
stranger, with an almost miserly cupidity. “I must put 
my agents in the track of them.” 

Garrod went on from rapture to rapture as if he were 
trying to steal Haslam’s reputation for conversation, and 
occasionally turning to Memling to confirm him. 

Memling answered almost absently, for his mind was 
in a whirl. Here perhaps was the very man he was look- 
ing for — come right to his hand, ready to eat out of it. 
He was a man of such evident means and such evident 
avidity for treasures, and he seemed to know so little 

103 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

of these master painters, that Memling decided to sell 
him Roger Van Veen’s art works if he had to put a pistol 
to his head. 

Memling grew hungry as he visioned the large sums 
he might get from this person, but the element of danger 
was great, for the man might be a friend of Van Veen’s, 
or he might call in experts to verify the authenticity of 
his purchases, and these experts might ask awkward ques- 
tions as to the pedigrees and travels of these paintings. 
For such records are kept like the records of other blooded 
stock. But this risk had to be taken with anybody. 

As Memling was urging himself to grasp the chance, 
risk and all, the stranger looked at his watch and an- 
nounced that he must go. He said laughingly that he was 
a charter member of the club, but had not been there for 
ten years. He belonged to so many clubs that he had 
forgotten his membership in the Mummers. He seemed to 
have so much of everything that he could remember 
nothing. 

As he moved from the clump of men he bowed with 
respect to Memling, whose name he had heard invoked 
several times as an authority. 

Seeing his victim about to escape and to escape anony- 
mously, Memling was seized with a sudden resolution. He 
rose, and, following the man, halted him at the head of 
the stairs. 

“Excuse me,” he said, “but you expressed a desire to 
possess a Terborg or two, and some Van Mierises.” 

“Yes.” 

“I happen to know where you could lay hands on some 
of them.” 

“Really! You interest me immensely. Are the pic- 
tures yours?” 


104 


An TJneocpected Encounter 


“Yes — no — that is, they belong to a poor widow of 
my acquaintance. You could make a good bargain and 
do an act of charity at the same time.” 

“I’m overrun with appeals for charity,” said the man, 
with a snapping of the lips like closing the thin lids of a 
watch. “But I should like to see the pictures, Mr. — Mr. — 
Memling, isn’t it.?^” 

“Yes.” 

“Where could I see them, Mr. Memling.? At the home 
of the — widow, didn’t you say.? Who is she? Where 
does she live?” 

Memling sparred for time. “I could let you know 
later when I have found out just when it would be most 
convenient for you — and the — the widow.” 

“Very good. Just telephone me, will you?” 

“Certainly. Where could I reach you?” 

“My number is in the book.” 

“Oh, of course. But — it’s very stupid of me — I didn’t 
catch your name.” 

The old man looked rather miffed, as if every one 
ought to know his name. Somewhat chillily he fumbled 
for his card case, and as he poked a pasteboard at Mem- 
ling, he said almost testily: 

“Let me hear from you soon. I sail for Europe at the 
end of the week. Good night, Mr. Memling.” 

Memling took the card, and murmured “Good night !” 
Then he glanced at the white square. It slipped from his 
hand, as his startled eyes read the legend : 


MR. ROGER VAN VEEN 


105 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


CHAPTER XXI 

THE DISAPPEARING WIDOWER 

W HEN Memling reached the studio he was covered 
with cold sweat and shaken with a chill. He had 
offered to sell Van Veen’s stolen pictures to Van Veen him- 
self. The man had acted like an ignoramus — ^but was he 
one.? Van Veen had been shrewd enough to heap up a 
fortune of millions, to buy yachts, and houses, and house 
boats, and masterpieces. He could not be anybody’s fool. 
Perhaps he had been shrewd enough to pretend ignorance 
of his stolen Terborgs and Van Mierises in order to gain a 
clue to them. His whole policy since the robbery had 
been one of hermetic secrecy. 

Memling had gone to him with an amateurish story 
of a widow and a lot of valuable art works. Could a man 
of such intelligence have been duped.? He would soon 
know. Van Veen knew Memling’s name. He could learn 
more of him at the club. He could learn of his mysterious 
life, his invisible means of support. He could learn his 
address. Even if Memling kept away from Van Veen, 
Van Veen would undoubtedly hunt up — or hunt down — 
Memling. 

The sculptor- thief cursed himself for a fool as well as 
a knave. In the face of exposure and shame the cleverness 
he had flattered himself upon turned sour on his stomach. 
He felt like the too ingenious lariat whirler who ties him- 
self in his own rope. He thought of himself as one of 
those over-ingenious persons whom boys ridicule as a 
“smart Alec.” 


106 


The Disappearing Widower 

He found his studio empty of people, but full of ter- 
rors. Of all times he wanted least to be alone now. He 
lighted every light. The glare frightened him more than 
the dark. He switched the lights all out again. 

The bell rang, and his heart swung like an alarm in a 
belfry. He dared not go to the door lest he admit some 
gruff official who would say : 

“Well, Mr. Memling, we’ve come for you.” 

He cowered in his easy-chair, his cigarette tremulous 
on his quivering lips. The doorknob turned, and he sat 
palsied. The incomer was only Nellie. Getting no answer 
to her ring, she had let herself in with her pass-key. 

Hungry for company in his misery, Memling told her 
what he had done. She agreed that he was a fool — ^but a 
dear fool. She loved him all the more for this touch of 
human frailty. She had made so many mistakes herself 
that she had felt a certain awe of Memling and his in- 
fallible pose. It was good to have him human like 
herself. 

The bell rang again, three longs and two shorts. It 
was Slinky’s signal. He came in aglow with importance. 

Nellie demanded: “Where you been that you’re so 
gay?” 

“To a cemetery,” he answered, with a chuckle. 

“A cemetery!” 

“Two o’ dem,” he said, “and I’ve brung home de 
grandest batch of news ever. I’ve sold one of dem 
statutes.” 

“Which one.?” said Memling eagerly. 

“How do I know till you tell me.?” he said. “It will 
need a little fixin’ up, but you’re a kind of a marble tailor, 
Mr. Memling. Didn’t you toin a Revolutionary general 
into a statue of a female nymp’.?” 

107 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“What’s the idea?” said Nellie. “What you drivin’ 
at?” 

“Well, you see, it’s like dis. I got a frien’ who is a 
dago marble cutter out at Lilac Ridge Cemetery on de 
Harlem Railroad. I goes to him and tells him I got a 
bunch of statutes dat ain’t woikin’, and has he any use for 
any nearly ready-to-wear monniments? He falls for it 
like a pound of lead. He says dey was a jempman who 
loses his wife last week, and lays her away on Lilac Ridge. 
He’s all cut up and says he wants a monniment for his dear 
departured. He’s a rich banker, and he said he’d pay ten 
t’ousand bones for an angel. Me frien’ de dago pulls out 
a coupla handfuls of his Eyetalian coils because he ain’t 
got an angel or anyt’ing nearer one dan a coupla broken 
columns and a Gates Ajar. 

“He tells Mr. Widderer, oh, yes, he knows where to lay 
hands on de swellest kind of angels. But when he comes 
to inquire, every angel any of his friends had had, had 
flew de coop. A few days later he meets de widderer, and 
de widderer says, ‘Ain’t you got me a angel yet ? If I 
had a nice angel I’d go as high as eight t’ousand bones 
for it.’ 

“Me dago friend t’rows a fit and says he’ll get one 
sure. But nary a piece of dat heavenly poultry can he 
find. Dey ain’t a angel on de market. Just before I 
strikes Lilac Ridge he’s talkin’ to de banker, and de guy 
says: ‘I must have a angel for me poor wife’s monniment 
if it costs six t’ousand.’ 

“Me dago friend is use to widderers. Dey cool off so 
quick you can’t holt ’em. Every day dey lop off a little 
more of deir unconsolableness. Says he to me, ‘Slinky, you 
gotta ketch a widderer on de wing or you lose him !’ He’s 
cryin’ when he says it. Every day he’s bein’ bereaved 
108 


The Disappearing Widower 

of anudder t’ousand. Dem widderers is kind of auctioneers 
upside down. 

“He says to me: ‘Slinky, if you loves me, get me a 
angel before dat widderer marries again.’ 

“I says, ‘I’ll get you one by retoin mail.’ He says, 
‘Remember every day means anudder t’ousand bones out 
of our pockets.’ So I takes de foist train back to town, 
and here I am. All we gotta do is to ship him one of dem 
angels and split w^hatever de widderer’ s grief is woit’ by de 
time we land him.” 

He sank back exhausted with his oration and his gush 
of enthusiasm. Memling shook his head regretfully. 

“It was a beautiful piece of work on your part, Her- 
man, but unfortunately we haven’t an angel in the shop.” 

“What!” cried Slinky. “Didn’t I wrap up sumpum 
wit’ wings on meself and help lug it to de van?” 

“There was a winged figure, Herman, but it was a fig- 
ure by Carpeaux entitled ‘L ’Allegro.’ She has nothing 
on but wings and a very mischievous smile. She might suit 
the widower a few months later, but not now, Herman, not 
now.” 

Slinky tossed his hands in despair. 

“Well, wat’s dat udder marble female under de white 
rag?” 

“That is a demure and proper lady, Herman, clothed 
in a long white robe. But she represents Cleopatra about 
to apply the serpent to her breast. It was one of Cleo- 
patra’s few proper moments.” 

“Well, den, I lay down,” groaned Slinky. “What’s 
de use? A hundred tons of marble round de joint and all 
dat widderer going to waste.” 

The three sat glum and even more depressed by the 
nearness of good fortune than if it had kept aloof. 

109 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Suddenly Nellie rose, went to the two statues, and 
drew aside the sheets that covered them. She studied them 
closely, thep turned to Memling. 

“Say, Doik, do wings ever come off 

“Many saints have molted or lost theirs entire,” said 
Memling. “In this sinful world wings, like halos, are 
excessively deciduous.” 

“I mean statues’ wings said Nellie. 

“Yes, the wings are often carved from a separate block 
of marble and mortised on the torso. But why do you 
ask .f*” 

“I was thinking that if this pair of wings was plucked 
off this goil in the altogether and pinned onto the shoulder 
blades of that Cleopatra dame — maybe, you’d have a kind 
of an angel that might pass in a crowd.” 

Slinky leaped to his feet. 

Memling rose with more leisure. He walked round the 
statues, making measurements with his eye. 

“Unfortunately Cleopatra is looking up with an ex- 
pression of wild despair. There is a marble teardrop on 
her cheek.” 

“Couldn’t that be toined into a look of heavenly resig- 
nation ?” 

“Soitanly!” cried Slinky. “And de teardrop is for de 
handsome husban’ she’s leavin’ behind. It might flatter 
dat widderer into puttin’ on an extra five hundred.” 

Memling smiled at Slinky’s fanatic zeal. 

“Unfortunately again, Cleopatra has a small and 
deadly serpent in her hand.” 

Slinky would not be rebuffed. 

“Wit’ a coupla swats wit’ your chisel you could 
change dat soipent to a bunch of forget-me-nots, or a 
rosary, or sumpin.” 


110 


A Rehearsal for a New Role 

“It might be done,” said Memling. 

“It’s gotta be done,” said Slinky. “And now dat I 
t’ink of it, after we pinch de plumes offen dat clothesless 
lady, I bet I can sell her to a frien’ of mine who runs a 
Toikish bat’.” 

“You might bring me the stepladder, Herman,” said 
Memling languidly. For once Slinky played the menial 
with enthusiasm. He brought the ladder, and Memling 
climbed it to make a careful inspection of Mademoiselle 
L’Allegro’s shoulder blades. She did not blush. She did 
not look as if she had ever blushed. 

“The lady’s wings are false,” said Memling. “She 
would look quite as well without them. It is not impos- 
sible to detach them and award them to the Cleopatra. 
She needs them. But it’s a matter of some delicacy.” 

“It is a matter of some delicacy to get dat banker 
before his inconsolables runs put complete,” said Slinky. 
“And now, if you’ll excuse me. I’ll telephone me dago 
friend to have his widderer here day after to-morrow.” 

“I should like a little longer,” protested Memling. 

“We can’t afford it. Dat widderer is simply oozin’ 
away at de rate of a t’ousand plunks every twenty-four 
hours.” 


CHAPTER XXII 

A REHEARSAL FOR A NEW ROLE 

T WO days later the transfer of wings had been ef- 
fected and the marble dust from Cleopatra’s shoul- 
der blades swept from the floor. The “serpent of old 
Nile” looked almost astonished with her deadly aspic 
changed to prayer beads, her suicidal grief for Antony 

111 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

changed to a serene aspiration for a Christian heaven she 
had never heard of, and her amorous shoulder blades 
clothed with pinions. 

The frivolous L’Allegro seemed to miss her wings no 
more than the rest of her costume, especially as she had 
been sold into slavery for five hundred dollars. She was 
making herself at home in the ladies’ wing of a luxurious 
bath establishment, and there she smiled mockingly at the 
portly members of her own sex who enviously aspired and 
perspired toward her own proportions. Roger Van Veen 
is not likely to see his stolen L’Allegro, for he is not 
likely to be admitted, or to ask to be admitted, to that 
section of that establishment. 

The bereaved banker came, saw, and was conquered 
by the apotheosized Cleopatra, and, as Slinky had pre- 
dicted, the marble tear shed for Marc Antony had turned 
him into an easier mark. 

He consented to pay four thousand dollars for her, 
but he was a banker, even in his weeds, and he insisted on 
paying only one thousand in cash, the rest in notes of 
various duration. 

Memling regarded the notes with dread, for every 
day’s delay in America imperiled his liberty. A bright 
idea flashed over him, however, and he asked the banker 
if he would honor his own notes by cashing them — at the 
usual discount. 

And this the widower did — at a little better than the 
usual discount. Once a banker always a banker. 

The Italian marble cutter had been browbeaten into 
accepting five hundred dollars for his share, and paying 
all the expenses of transporting the ex-Cleopatriated 
statue and setting her up on Lilac Ridge. He wept and 
cursed copiously, but finally yielded, and secretly con- 
112 


A Rehearsal for a New Role 

gratulated himself. He would be at no further expense 
than the cartage and erection of the statue. You can see 
her now, very much at home, if you visit Lilac Ridge. 
The widower has since remarried, but Cleopatra still 
revels in her new costume. Van Veen has never been there 
to see. 

Once the deed was consummated, the consoled banker 
gone, and the marble cutter on his way back to West- 
chester, the three conspirators put the heap of money at 
the feet of the pseudo angel and danced in a wild circle 
round her. 

The telephone bell cut the revel short. Memling said 
to Slinky: “You answer it, Herman, and say you’re my 
secretary — no, with that dialect, you’d better be my chauf- 
feur.” 

Slinky slumped from his height of pride, but obeyed, 
while Nellie and Memling listened. 

“Hellow, bellow, well, what t’ — ^bellow! Who iss it? 
Mr. Who? Mr. Van Bean — no, Veen — oh, yes. Well, 
Mr. Van Veen, whatcher want? Oh! Well, me master is 
upstairs in de — er — aquarium. What? Come closter to 
de ’phone. I’m de shofer, you kin speak plain to me.” A 
long silence from Slinky. “Oh, all right. If you’ll hold 
de wire I’ll run up and tellum.” 

He set the receiver down and tiptoed to the corner 
where Memling and Nellie beckoned him. 

“He says you promised to call him up, but you ain’t 
done it. He got your address at de club and got your 
’phone number from Inflammation, and he was expectin’ to 
go to Europe, but, bein’ kep’ back by business, he wants 
to see dem pitchers before he takes de next boat.” 

Memling hesitated. He was mortally afraid of Van 
Veen, but success intoxicated him to dare anything. 

113 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“Well, I might as well brazen it out,” he said, and 
with grim resolution went to the telephone. 

“Oh, how are you, Mr. Van Veen ! Oh, yes, I remem- 
ber it perfectly. Very stupid of me. I’ve been exceed- 
ingly occupied. Not at all — yes, indeed. The pictures 

are at the home of Mrs. , the widow I spoke of. Of 

course, you could see them. Well, her home is — er — per- 
haps you’d better come here. I’ll have them at my studio 
— ^this afternoon.? Very good!” 

He glanced round and saw the hybrid angel still un- 
removed. It would never do to have Van Veen find her 
there. He turned back to the telephone. 

“Oh, I forgot! My man reminds me that I have an 
engagement this afternoon. To-morrow, if you will. 
Good, to-morrow, then. Thank you. Yes, isn’t it warm.? 
Quite like summer. Oh, not at all. Good-by, Mr. Van 
Veen.” 

He rose from the telephone, and said to Slinky : 

“You telephone your Italian friend that he must 
get this angel out of here before to-morrow noon, if 
he has to take her in a shawl strap. Nellie, you 
come here.” 

While Slinky pursued the marble cutter through the 
telephone Memling took his old model to a far corner, and 
said: 

“Nellie, you’ve got to be a widow.” 

“Whose.?” 

“It doesn’t matter much.” 

“I’d like, to be your widow.” 

“Thanks !” 

“I don’t mean that, of course. I mean I’d like to 
have a chance to be your widow and then have you change 
your mind and not die.” 


114 


A Rehearsal for a New Role 

“That’s very nice of you, Nellie. I’m afraid I’d make 
a pretty bad sort of husband.” 

Nellie sighed to the depths of her poor little warped 
soul. So many things that other people had she could not 
hope to have. She blamed fate more than herself, and fate 
was the more at fault. It had started her wrong, and en- 
vironed her wrong. 

Memling looked at her sadly. She, with her crooked 
parentage and her mismanaged youth, had gone through 
nearly all wickedness, yet kept the kernel of her soul 
full of decent hopes and noble longings, in spite of all 
the evils she had suffered, the buffets she had had in the 
face. 

He, with every advantage of birth, gentle breeding, 
lofty ideals, and high beginnings, had permitted one blow 
of man’s injustice to twist him aside from his ambitions 
and corrupt everything in him to a craven cynicism. She 
was a good seed fallen on a rock and trampled and 
parched, forbidden to grow at all. He was a tree that had 
shot up straight, then bent under one storm till he pointed 
back to earth and grew gnarled, fruitless, hopeless. 

He shook his head sadly and dismissed regret and 
remorse. They could always wait. He took up the more 
pressing business. “As I said, Nellie, you are to be a 
widow.” 

“All right,” she answered, with a brave recovery. 
“What’s my name.?” 

“You can have your pick. It’s a privilege few women 
have had. Give me the telephone book.” She handed him 
the bulky tome, and it fell open midway. 

“How would you like to be Mrs. O’Dowd or O’Grady.?” 

“Come out of Ireland,” she said. 

“Well, here’s Mrs. Obermeier or Mrs. Ottenheimer.” 

115 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


“And don’t jump to Jerusalem.” 

“Mrs. Palmier! or — ^here’s a good one: Papavasilo- 
pulo.” 

“Whew! Gimme sumpum I can look and talk like — 
sumpum United Statesy.” 

“How’s Patterson 

“Sounds like New Joisey. Gimme sumpum more aris- 
tocratic.” 

“Mrs. — ^Van Benthuysen.” 

“That’s grand!” 

“I don’t believe you could live up to it, Nellie. Besides, 
Van Veen is a Van himself. These Vans are very jealous 
of each other.” 

“Me father used to drive one once.” 

“Take shame to you, Nellie! How would you like to 
be Mrs. Vaughan.'^” 

“That’s not so woise.” 

“Or Mrs. Vernon.?” 

“That’s simply supoib. Me for Mrs. Voinon.” 

“I’m afraid of your oi’s, Nellie. We’ll stick to 
Vaughan, Mrs. Nellie Vaughan.” 

“Nix on the Nellie. Consuelo Arabella for mine.” 

“All right! Consuelo Vaughan you are. Have you 
a black dress.?” 

“On’y that black sequin I wore last night to the 
theater.” 

“That’s less like mourning than a red satin would 
look.” 

“Then I gotta get sumpum else. Have you got the 
price ?” 

“I have. Go out to-morrow morning and buy a full 
set of weeds that will look like real mourning.” 

“How much.? Halfway in and halfway out.?” 

116 


A Rehearsal for a New Role 


“Yes. Get something becoming. And now for a les- 
son in high art — say Terborg.” 

“Toiboig.” 

“Not a bit like it. Try again — Terborg.” 

“Turrburrg.” 

“The ‘r’ should not sound like the slipping of a cog, 
neither should it be perverted into ‘oi-oi.’ Once more, 
and remember, you’re supposed to be a lady of the upper, 
not the lower. East Side.” 

“Say, what kind of a guy was this I’m mournin’ the 
loss of, anyway?” 

“We’d better make sure of that now. And put it in 
writing, so that we’ll agree.” 

They set to work to devise a past for the late Mr. 
Vaughan. Memling wanted to call him Percy — but since 
Nellie made it Poissy — he changed it to the safer and 
saner John. Even Nellie could not twist that. 

Since Nellie knew little of the upper circles except 
what she had learned in studios, Memling made Mr. 
Vaughan an amateur artist of independent income, which 
he had lost in the late panic. In his travels in Holland he 
had picked up a number of masterpieces. Since Nellie 
knew nothing of Holland it was thought best to date this 
visit prior to her marriage. 

Nellie’s last question was a sudden: 

“Say, who is goin’ to be me chaperon?” 

Memling thought of Nellie’s readiness to go anywhere 
at any time. He smiled. She explained: 

“I’ve gotta be respectable, ain’t I? I can’t come to 
your studio all by my lonesome.” 

“You can be my cousin,” said Memling. 

This seemed to satisfy every contingency, but Mem- 
ling waited the ordeal of the morrow with all of a dra- 
in 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

matist’s first-night terror over the prosperity of a new 
play before a strange audience. 


CHAPTER XXIII 
COALS TO NEWCASTLE 

T he next morning Cleopatra, plus a pair of wings 
and minus one snake, went out of the studio feet 

first. 

Early in the afternoon Memling received the second 
of Roger Van Veen’s visiting cards. It was brought to 
him by Slinky, who was dressed like a footman, but said 
that he felt like something else. He did not mind the long 
tails of his coat, but he objected to his waistcoat. He dis- 
liked the omen of the stripes. 

Nellie smothered her laughter at the sight of Slinky 
with a card on a tray, and made a dash for the back 
stairs. She was to slip out of the area gate, ring the 
front bell, and make a formal reappearance. 

Memling’s last word was, “Remember your pronunci- 
ations.” 

“I will,” she whispered. “The guy’s name is not Toi- 
boig, but — Toiboig.” 

Memling threw up his hands in despair. He was sure 
that Nellie’s dialect would ruin everything and probably 
land them all in the penitentiary. He had grown too 
much used to Nellie to realize that she had something 
besides illiteracy. She had the beauty of Aphrodite and 
the woman’s wit of Lilith, though they meant nothing to 
her any more except in the service of her idolized Memling. 
When Roger Van Veen was ushered in he brought 
118 


Coals to Newcastle 

with him Herbert Haslam ! Memling was completely up- 
set. He had never expected a double cross-fire. Between 
a shrewd millionaire and a cynical critic he was taken in 
enfilade indeed. 

And somehow Memling, who had put aside nearly 
every other sense of shame, felt a horror of making use of 
a fellow clubman. It was bad enough that the transac- 
tion should have started in the sacred realm of his beloved 
Mummers ; to dupe two members at once was getting des- 
perately ungentlemanly. And Memling clung to the ideas 
of a gentlemanly behavior as a last shred of self-respect. 
But he was in for it, and there was no turning back. 

Van Veen was more dapper than ever, his lips more like 
the edges of a watchcase, for he was about to buy some- 
thing. His first words were — and he spoke with the au- 
thority of a purchaser: 

“I’d like to make it plain at once, Mr. Memling, that 
I look at these pictures purely as a business transaction. 
The fact that they are for sale by a widow does not affect 
me in the least. My charities are taken care of by a 
special secretary. I hope you will not emphasize the fact 
that the pictures are the last property of a widow in dis- 
tress.” 

Memling hated him for the speech, but he managed 
to say : 

“I shall not allude to it, Mr. Van Veen, further than 
to remind you that since she is a widow and in need of 
immediate money, the opportunity is double for a shrewd 
business man like you to pick up great bargains at your 
own figures.” 

The thrust told. Van Veen glanced at the sculptor’s 
gentle face and saw no irony there. He took flattery from 
the insult, and his little eyes snapped. Memling hated 

119 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

him more than ever, and it struck him as almost a noble 
task to fool this old miser, and a masterpiece of sports- 
manship to sell him his own properties — make him a re- 
ceiver of goods stolen from himself. 

He led the way to the paintings, set up on easels or 
along a divan. And Van Veen scrutinized them closely 
with a pretense of knowledge that did not deceive a con- 
noisseur. 

He hissed: “Very nice. This one is very, very nice. 
And this one is very nice, too.” 

But Haslam went into unfettered raptures that his 
profession rarely permitted or justified. 

“They’re great ! They’re great ! The texture of 
them — these Dutchmen got the texture of everything, 
silks, furs, leather, human hide, a ’cello, a chair — the tex- 
ture of the sunlight itself — the texture of the very soul of 
everything. These canvases are small, but they’re like 
little lenses ; they focus a universe in a small space.” 

His hands were caressing them at a distance, and 
Memling’s heart went out to him. He laid his hand on 
the critic’s shoulder and said: 

“I didn’t know you had it in you to rise to master- 
pieces like these.” 

“I don’t often get the chance,” sighed Haslam. “The 
men who are painting to-day look pretty small, most of 
them, when you think of them through a perspective of a 
few hundred years.” 

Van Veen studied the critic closely, and tried to 
catch some of his enthusiasm. But while it was evident 
that he was ready to buy, his raptures were cold and 
cautious. 

Still he was ready to buy, and Memling wished that 
he had kept Nellie out of it altogether. The bell rang 
120 


Coals to Newcastle 

and brought a cold sweat out on him. He was sure that 
she would make some ghastly slip with her “Toiboigs.” 

When Nellie came in, veiled, Van Veen drew himself up 
like an imitation of adamant. When she threw back her 
veil the adamant turned to jelly — wine jelly. 

Memling himself was startled at the face that looked 
out from the black crape. Fright had whitened Nellie’s 
skin. Fear of danger enlarged her eyes, and fear of her- 
self gave her a halty speech that served excellently well for 
the fresh grief of a meek little saint. 

It was wonderful how neatly she said what she said. 
Memling was amazed at the ingenuity with which she 
evaded the use of the words she could not say. She talked 
about Terborg, and her husband’s love of his work, and 
never once used the crucial name. Memling winced every 
time she approached, but she never touched the reef, not 
once. 

She pointed out to Van Veen the beauties of the pic- 
tures, but he could only see the beauties of the hands she 
pointed with. When she bade him look at the canvas he 
looked at her. 

Memling, seeing that she paid no heed to the conquest, 
wanted to signal her in some way to take advantage of it. 
As if she had not seen her own success before he — or Van 
Veen — realized it ! 

But success inflamed even her, and she grew voluble. 
When little slips slipped in, Haslam, who could never lay 
off criticism, was alert for these, and Memling saw a little 
acid in his smile. He drew him aside to let Nellie have 
full sway with Van Veen. 

Haslam w^ent willingly. He said, when they were out 
of earshot: 

‘‘So this is your game, old boy.^^” 

121 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“My game?” echoed Memling, as his heart stopped. 

“No wonder you don’t have to chop statues out of the 
hard rock, when you can turn your handsome studio into 
a confidential auction room for selling old masters to old 
millionaires with alleged widowlets as auctioneers.” 

Memling turned red with rage. “If you dare talk 
like that I’ll kick you out of here, and your millionaire 
after you !” And he would have done it. He calmed him- 
self enough to demand : 

“Do you question the authenticity of those paint- 
ings ?” 

“Not at all,” said Haslam uneasily, more convinced by 
Memling’s wrath than by anything else. “But I am not 
convinced of your widow.” 

“Why not.?” 

“That dialect of hers. It’s pretty thick when it slips 

in.” 

Memling paused. Then he shrugged his shoulders. 
“That’s her own private affair, Haslam. Did you never 
hear of a pretty model marrying above her station?” 

Haslam stared hard. “What a fool I am ! Of course. 
I beg your pardon. Besides, it’s none of my business. 
The one thing I’m here for is to make sure that the paint- 
ings are genuine.” 

“On my sacred honor as an artist, and a gentleman, I 
pledge you my belief that they are the work of Terborg 
and Van Mieris.” 

“I believe you. I’ll tell Van Veen so.” 

“And when he has refurnished his empty walls at 
Ucayga you can write your catalogue, after all.” 

This shot was a bull’s-eye. It rang the bell of Has- 
lam’s hungry soul. He was Memling’s agent from 
then on. 


122 


Love Comes in at the Door 

As they drifted back they heard Van Veen saying to 
NelHe: 

“You ought to have some one to protect you from the 
cruel world.” 

There was a senile greediness in the tone, and Memling 
wanted to throttle the millionaire. Then Van Veen mur- 
mured : 

“The pictures seem to be thoroughly satisfactory, Mr. 
Memling. Thank you for letting me see them. I will 
discuss the terms with Mrs. Vaughan herself to-morrow.” 

And now Memling wanted to boot him out. But he 
bowed him out instead, though he loathed him so that he 
could hardly speak. 

CHAPTER XXIV 

LOVE COMES IN AT THE DOOR 

T he next day Memling waited in loneliness and im- 
patience at the studio. Nellie had gone to see Van 
Veen. He had offered to come to her, but she had no 
place to receive him. 

This time it was Memling that wanted her to have a 
chaperon. It was she that smiled. 

“I guess I can take care of myself,” she said, and 
added tenderly: “I’m awful glad you wanted me not to 
go alone. It makes me feel you care a little for me, 
after all. Good bye!” 

Memling sat waiting in jealous discomfort. He had 
never felt a tinge of green for Nellie before. But now he 
feared for her in the power of the spidery old plutocrat. 
He paced the floor, the prey of a dozen worries, each con- 
tradicting each. Pie thought she would never return. 

123 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirh Memling 


But at last she reappeared. She had a reticule bulging 
with money. 

“He offered me a check. But I made him send out and 
cash it. How much do you suppose he gave me.?” 

“About half what you asked.?” growled Memling. 
“And took advantage of your being a widow.” 

Nellie laughed: “As the French say, ‘Oh, contrary!’ 
I took advantage of him. He offered me twice as much 
as I asked. There’s forty thousand-dollar bills in that 
bag.” 

“Good Lord !” said Memling. 

“Do you want to see it.?” 

“No!” he snarled, knocking the wealth aside, “I want 
you to look me in the eyes.” 

She looked up at him with the simplicity of an angel. 

“What else did he have to say.?” 

“A lot.” 

“What was it.?” 

“Oh, it wouldn’t interest you.” 

“Wouldn’t it.?” roared Memling. “I insist on know- 
ing what the old scoundrel dared to say.” 

His jealous frenzy rejoiced her. She laughed aloud. 

“Well, he dared a good deal. He dared to ask me to 
marry him.” 

“Don’t take me for a fool,” snapped Memling. 

Nellie winced and flushed. “He had a lot to say about 
bein’ crazy about me. But I wouldn’t talk anything but 
Toiboig. He never noticed how I said it. He can’t say it 
right himself. But I — he tried to kiss me, and I slapped 
his face for him. It did him a lot of good — and me, too. 
He liked me better for it. Then he apologized and tried 
to get in my good graces, by doubling what I asked for 
the paintings. I was all to the Lady Macbeth till he sent 

IM 


Love Comes in at the Door 


out for the money. Then I said, ‘Thanks very much. 
Good day!’ 

“But he put his hand on mine where it held the door- 
knob, and he played Romeo for fair. He said he was 
mad about me, and he’d be honored and overjoyed if I’d 
be his wife. Honestogawd he did. I nearly dropped 
dead.” 

“What did you tell him?” said Memling hoarsely. 

“I told him I’d think it over. I said it was awful 
sudden, and — all the things I could think of out of the 
books. And then I made- a getaway. He was white as a 
sheet, and he’d been cry in’.” 

Memling knotted his brows in amazement and medita- 
tion. The astounding outcome of the game overawed him. 
Nellie had not only sold Van Veen his own pictures for a 
great price, but she had won an offer of marriage from 
the infatuated dotard. 

Ugly thoughts of selfish yellow flashed into Memling’s 
heart. When the pictures were restored to Ucayga the 
watchman Beals might recognize them, or Haslam, in 
looking up their history, might trace their original sale to 
Van Veen. Exposure and pursuit, even to extradition, 
would hound them down. 

But if Nellie married Van Veen nothing further mat- 
tered. The fear of ridicule would check everything, even 
if his love changed to horror. 

The one wise, safe, crafty thing to do was to urge the 
marriage and hasten it. He put it to Nellie in another 
way. 

“Nellie,” he said, “it’s a great chance for you. You’ve 
suffered all your life, and have known poverty, and shame, 
and hardship, and humiliation. You’re in great danger 
now. If you should marry this man you would be rich 

125 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

and safe — a great lady. Your beauty would win you a 
place in the highest circles. And your wealth would make 
you happy. Write to Van Veen and tell him yes. Marry 
him to-morrow.” 

Nellie heard him through and looked him through in 
silence. She had been thinking all he thought. She had 
followed his course of reasoning across his wrinkled brow. 
His words did not deceive her. The selfishness of his inner 
motive shone through the altruism of his words. 

That he would sacrifice her to such a union for his 
own safety’s sake cut her to the quick of her soul. Her 
only answer was tears, a flood of tears and wrenching 
sobs. All that Memling could get her to say was : 

“You don’t love me! You don’t love me!” 

And Memling understood — understood her and the 
heart of her heart. He despised himself for giving such 
ugly thoughts a moment’s lodging in his soul. He re- 
alized that below even the depth of infamy he had reached 
was an uglier infamy — to sell the woman who loved him 
to a loveless marriage. 

Suddenly realizing that, after all, he had not sunk to 
the deepest deep, and that there was yet some wickedness 
that he could spurn, he exulted like one redeemed from the 
pit. He caught the sobbing girl in his arms and mur- 
mured : 

“I didn’t mean it, Nellie. I wouldn’t let you marry 
anybody but me. Dry your dear eyes and we’ll go to Italy 
on the first steamer that sails.” 

She sat up and her tear-drenched cheeks rounded in a 
laugh of delight. And they began to plan their voyage to 
the new Old World. 

But such plans of mice, and men, and maids gang aft 
aglee. 


126 


The Talented Omnibus 


CHAPTER XXV 

THE TALENTED OMNIBUS 

L isten at him! Ain’t he supoib — simpluh supoib?” 

Nellie whispered, poising a forkload of salad before 
her exquisite lips, parted in an expression that was am- 
biguous between appetite and emotion. 

“He plays very well,” Memling assented somewhat 
stingily. Nellie thought she saw a trace of jealousy in 
his eyes. She hoped it was there, for the occasional hint 
of green gave her more belief in his love than any of the 
compliments he lavished on her in his complimentary 
moods. 

She was ordinarily meek with him to the point of 
craven timidity, but to-night she was emboldened to ven- 
ture a little farther, and see if she could fan that little 
green fume into a flame. 

The humble, the all-enduring Nellie had been rapidly 
taking on self-respect. She had begun to realize how im- 
portant she had been to Memling and his purse, not only 
in carrying out the Cinematographic Robbery, but in the 
more vital problem of selling the loot. 

And now that Memling and she were to take the next 
steamer to Europe, where they could spend their fortune 
without looking over their shoulders in terror at every 
footstep, they were dining dangerously at one of the best 
cafes. 

Almost any music would have pleased Nellie the tri- 
umphant, Nellie the rich, but the fiddler she found “su- 

127 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

poib” was really playing extraordinarily well. And the 
final touch of glory was to have Memling wince when she 
praised another man. So she praised him some more. 

Only a woman of Nellie’s simple origin would try to 
express musical rapture and eat a Fontainebleau salad at 
the same time. But Nellie tried it. 

As the melodious violin wept out its heart and sent its 
sobs through the restaurant, Nellie’s eyes were veiled with 
a wonderful regret, and in deference to the music she 
chewed very slowly. 

A more cultivated woman would have either postponed 
mastication or ignored the music, but Nellie looked solemn 
and chewed very slowly. The music was simply supoib, 
but so was the Fontainebleau salad. The violin’s voice had 
tears in it — ^but the salad had grape fruit and walnuts 
in it. 

“It’s divine — simpluh divine!” sighed Nellie. 

“It isn’t a bad salad,” said Memling. 

“I was allooding to the music, Doik,” she said. She 
was calling him by his first name now. 

The proved ability to make important money exerts a 
big effect on a human soul. It is almost impossible to be 
meek and a millionaire at the same time. Nellie was far 
from being a millionaire, but she had hoodwinked a mil- 
lionaire, and that is even more deranging to humility. 

So Nellie felt that she had a right a express a musical 
opinion, and if it made Memling jealous, she had a right 
to make him a little jealouser. Gawd knows how long and 
how croolly he had poisecuted her feelings, and even the 
woim will toin at last. So she continued: 

“I wisht you’d ast the head waiter what toon that is. 
It just poimeates me very soul.” 

Perhaps she was overdoing it a bit, for to her keen 

128 


The Talented Omnibus 

disappointment Memling snapped his fingers at the head 
waiter. It frightened Nellie, for she was always afraid 
of head waiters. She would as soon have snapped her 
fingers at a dook or a belted oil. But the maitres d’hotel 
always came humbly enough when Memling signaled. 

So now this portly personage came down the aisle bow- 
ing from afar like a ship on a ground swell. Besides, 
Memling had ordered wine, and his table was dignified by 
a silver pail with a gold-necked bottle anchored in the ice. 
Probably he was about to order another bottle, or at least 
a half bottle. So the head waiter came salaaming. He. 
wilted a little as Memling said : 

“You have a new violinist to-night, Pierre.” 

“Yes, monsieur, but only for to-night. I hope he 
doesn’t annoy you.'^ He is a substitute we picked up at 
the last minute. Our regular violinist is ill, monsieur.” 

“I don’t care if he never comes back,” hummed Nellie. 
“This lad is a poifect dream. I am pashnately fond of 
all kinds of music, but the violin is simple irresistless.” 

The head waiter looked down on Nellie, because he 
knew that, though she dined at times with the great sculp- 
tor, Mr. Dirk Memling, she was only his model. He said 
loftily: 

“I’m sorry that mademoiselle does not like our regular 
violinist. He comes from the Conservatoire.” 

“I don’t care if he comes from the Obsoivatoire,” said 
Nellie spunkily. “He plays like a hoidy-goidy. But this 
lad has got that Belgian violinist — what’s his name — 
Isaiah — on the run. He has coily hair, too, and it kind 
of goes with good fiddling — seems to help them emote 
when it gets in their eyes.” 

Even head waiters have some respect for themselves, 
though they have none for waiters. Pierre Bonpland felt 

129 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

that he could alFord to suppress Nellie now and for all 
time. 

He brought up the final argument. With the haugh- 
tily humble shrug of an indignantly amiable head waiter 
he said: 

“The man who is playing now is — well, to tell the 
truth, he is a waiter — and hardly that — only an omni- 
bus.” 

“I don’t care if he’s a taxicab,” Nellie persisted, bris- 
tling. “He knows how to toin a fiddle into a human soul.” 

The head waiter turned to Memling with a smile that 
said: “What fools these women be!” But Memling came 
to Nellie’s defense. 

“The fellow really plays with a good deal of tempera- 
ment, Pierre.” 

This was different. Mr. Memling was a considerable 
customer; he must be agreed with. 

“Monsieur is right. He has much temperament — for 
a waiter.” 

“For anybody,” said Memling, with that icy calm of 
his that froze everything within reach. “Would you mind 
asking him what he is playing.'^” 

“Certainly, at once, monsieur, by all means.” 

The head waiter sailed up to the platform and mo- 
tioned the violinist. The poor fellow turned pale and bent 
low to hear his master’s voice. He went on playing, but 
with a trembling bow. 

He murmured an answer to the head waiter’s whisper, 
and that bulky leviathan came bulging down the aisle 
again. 

They are playing ‘The Traumerei,’ monsieur.” 

“ ‘The Trowmery I’ of course,” cried Nellie. “I al- 
ways loved Shopang.” 


130 


The Talented Omnibus 

“In Germany they pronounce it Schumann,” said 
Memling. 

The violinist after that kept his big, lonesome eyes 
fastened on Memling’s table. He played apologetically, 
as if to say : “Please forgive me if I upset you. I prom- 
ise not to play my best again. I forgot.” 

And, after one piece more, he quit playing at all. The 
farewell number was a little popular musical-comedy tune, 
but he gave it so much grace and personality that it 
sounded better than it had any right to sound. 

Nellie seemed to feel this, for she said: 

“I bet that toon don’t know itself the way he dresses 
it up. It prob’ly feels like I did when I saw that statue 
you made of me — the Dryad, you know.” 

“Hush!” said Memling. The Dryad was one of the 
saddest spots in his sad memory. 

He sat dreaming of this lost treasure of his soul, 
bartered for a mess of pottage; but Nellie, who had been 
rather jealous of the Dryad, was watching the fiddler as 
he put away his resounding shell and left the platform. 

Nellie and Memling were dining late, and the orchestra, 
weary of pulling the souls out of their instruments while 
a herd of people were stuffing their stomachs, was glad 
enough of a rest. The cafe would be practically empty 
till the after-theater supper crowd would flood it again. 
And then the orchestra would resume the task of casting 
its pearls before lobster ransackers and Welsh-rabbit 
hunters. 

The substitute violinist was coming down the aisle. 
He would pass their table. Nellie had found him useful 
as a prod for Memling’s drowsy jealousy. She could not 
afford to waste him. But she hardly dared to speak to 
him on her own account. 


131 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

She reached out and, seizing Memling’s wrist, startled 
him out of his sculptural reverie: 

“Say, Doik, here comes that omnibus violinist. Slip 
him a kind word, there’s a dear.” 

With rather grudging consent Memling put up his 
hand to detain the passer-by. The poor fellow had paced 
those aisles so often as a valet to the waiters that he 
instinctively paused in a garcon-like pose, as much as to 
say: 

“A fork.'^ A spoon.? Another napkin.? Yes, sir; 
yes, sir.” 

To his amazement, Memling said: 

“I wanted to compliment you on your music. It was 
charming.” 

The fellow was so startled that he fell back on his na- 
tive tongue. 

**Ach, danke schbn! Vielen Dank! Grossen DankT' 

And Nellie had to add: “You play a violin some- 
thing supoib.” 

The poor fellow was so flustered that if he had had 
in his hands his usual trayload of soiled dishes, he would 
certainly have let them fall with eclat. He continued to 
repeat his thanks, unable either to go or to stay. “I was 
afeart I did disteerb you.” 

“Distoib us !” gasped Nellie. “I should say you did ! 
But it was our emotions you distoibed.” Then, seeing 
him uncertain what to do, she said: “Sit down, won’t 
you.?” 

He was too deeply confused to disobey, and, when he 
realized what he had done, he was so petrified that he 
could not get up. His shuttling eyes caught a look of 
chagrin on Memling’s face, and then on the head waiter’s 
face a suffusion that threatened apoplexy. Pierre hur- 

132 


A Violinless Violinist 


ried from the room. The ruling passion is strong in wait- 
ers, and he felt that if he must have epilepsy, he must not 
annoy the guests with it. 


CHAPTER XXVI 
A VIOLINLESS VIOLINIST 

M EMLING had been somewhat taken aback by find- 
ing himself at table with one of the waiters, and 
he saw the other waiters staring surreptitiously his way. 
But he had too much pride to show his discomfort 
publicly, and he decided to make a virtue of necessity. 
With the invisible condescension of a Kaiser greeting a 
plain ex-President, he said: 

“Pierre tells me that violin playing is not your — your 
regular occupation.” 

Nellie felt a snobbish implication, and she gasped: 
“Doik !” But the fidgety fiddler said : 

“It iss not now it, but once it wass it. I am a diploma 
from the Leipzig Conservatorioom, and I have as contsert- 
meister in great orchester oft gespielt. From Deutsch- 
land I have the contserttour in England gemacht, und in 
Sheffielt I am for zwei years directink my own symphonie 
orchester. So much success have I hadded dat all the pee- 
bles say you should by Americah come. So I take me a 
schifF und here am I come. But I am not much of a sav- 
ing man, und when I am landed, I have in the pocket small 

money. But I says soon I get me a nice yop 

“A nice what.?^” said Nellie. 

“Yop — is it not a yop I should say.?” 

“Oh, soitan’y, excuse me,” Nellie murmured. “I un- 

133 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


derstand. It’s the old story. Uncle Sam is the greatest 
confidence operator in the business. You thought you’d 
find a million-dollar tree growing at the water’s edge, and 
— ^you didn’t.” 

‘‘I deedn’t it — no,” said the violinist, with almost a 
smile. “The contsert manachers say they cannot get me 
the contserts till I have the ” 

“I know,” said Nellie; “they told you what Corbett 
told Fitzsimmons : ‘Go git a reputation.’ ” 

“Ja wohl, you have it! So I say, I must in an or- 
chester a place get. But every orchester is. fool up al- 
ready. Then I am told, you must belong by the Musical 
Union. So I go by the Musical Union. There a man 
says: ‘You cannot belong by us till you have in Ameri- 
cah sechs monaten gebleiben.” 

“I don’t quite get that ‘gebleiben,’ ” said Nellie. 

“I must live here seex mont’s. Aber how can I live 
here seex mont’s if I cannot live at all.^^ I try to get me a 
yop. But I cannot anywhere a yop get.” 

“How on oith did you keep from starving said Nel- 
lie, her face woeful with sympathy. 

“I deed not keep from it. I deed it. When I am 
owing so much money by my boarding house dat I can- 
not have any more my room, and cannot get me my trunk 
away, I sleep on the park benshes — me and my violine. 
One day when I get pretty hungry, I fall off the bensh 
where I am sitting, in Medison Skvare.” 

“Medicine Square.?” said Nellie. “I thought I knew 
my New York, but Medicine Square is a new one on me.” 

“Don’t you know it. Medicine Skvare.? Vere iss de 
Medicine Skvare Garten und Feeft’ Evvenoo crosses 
Broatvay .?” 

“Oh, yes, I’m hep,” said Nellie, winking a moist eye 

134 


A Violinless Violinist 


at Memling. ‘‘You was so hungry you fell off the bench. 
Ain’t it awful, Doik? But go on.” 

“A policemans says I am drunk and gives me a hot 
foot vit his club.” 

“Ain’t that New York!” Nellie mumbled. “When in 
doubt call it a drunk. That’s the motto. Go on.” 

“So I tell my violine ^Auf wiederseh^n,* und leave her 
by a pawnings shop. It is like sellink my own baby.” 

Nellie saw through a fog of tears that this had gone 
home to Memling. He knew what it was to sell his Dryad. 
His dark eyes were glistening, and he was violently 
scratching designs on the tablecloth with his thumb nail. 
The violinist went on: 

“After I am pawn my soul, my voice, my all, I have a 
little money for a little vile — ^not much, versteh’n-Sie, aber 
— a little. The man gives me not half I paid for the vio- 
line. Finally I get a yop as a porter in a hotel. But I 
am not trained in the Conservatorioom for carrying 
trunks, and the feerst beeg box breaks for me my back. 
Then they give me yop to vash the deeshes in thees res- 
taurant. 

“By and by I am promoted. I can carry the deeshes. 
I am omniboos like you see me. Me who lest year am di- 
rectink the beautiful symphonies, I am now vaitink on the 
vaiters! Life is a funny place — yes.?” 

Nellie agreed solemnly: “Life is — well, you know, 
Doik, what General Shoiman said about war.” She 
turned again to the musician. “But how on oith did you 
come to play up on the platform there?” 

He smiled. “Oh, one day, in the morning, I am 
sweeping out the cafe, and nobody is here, and I see the 
violinist’s box, and I take a peep inside, so I shall not 
forget how a violine looks it. I see her lying there like a 

135 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

baby who sleeps in a cradle, and I pick her up and my 
fingers ache so I pick up also the bow. I look round, 
nobody is anywhere. I shut my eyes and put the violine 
under my cheen and draw the bow over the strinks very 
soft. 

“Und it iss like I am heepnotized, for I don’t remem- 
ber something more at all, till I hear peebles applowdink 
and I open my eyes und dere is all de vaiters vit deir 
mout’s und ears open, und Pierre — Herr Bonpland — he 
comes by me and says: ‘You play pretty good, don’t 
you.^’ und I say: ‘I am great artiste,’ und he makes a 
leffink und says: ‘See how good a toon you can play it 
vit de broom on de floor.’ 

“So I come down from de pletform und goes back to 
de omniboos. But aftervarts, one day at night, de violin- 
ist is not come, he is seeck, so Pierre says: ‘You get up 
and get busy vit de fiddle some more.’ And again to-night 
it comes not the violinist, und again I climb up to Para- 
dies und forget I am only a omniboos. It is not nice to be 
a musiker und have a soul, but no violine.” 

He dropped his chin on his breast in token of the com- 
pletion of his story and the completeness of his despair. 

Nellie’s eyes rested on his dejected curls as if her 
hand caressed them, and she sighed like an Antigone be- 
wailing the bitterness of fate in a phrase of Sophocles’ 
best Greek: 

“My Gawd, can you beat it.'”’ 

To hear her say it, one might have thought that it 
was her first vision of the world’s cruelty. In the face of 
other people’s troubles, Nellie always forgot that she had 
ever had any of her own. She had gone through greater 
tragedies and lost more than the hopeless violinist. 

Memling was brooding over the violinist, too, and 

136 


A Violinless Violinist 


over himself. He felt a certain close kinship with the 
waiter. Memling had begun life with a flash of glory as 
a sculptor, had won a great commission, only to fall into 
bankruptcy and futility through the graft of politicians, 
who raided a State treasury. 

But Memling had not become a waiter. He was too 
proud for that ; so he became a thief. By dint of caution 
and good luck, he had heretofore kept his own name and 
fame clear of suspicion, and he went about as an honor- 
able, an honored personage. But the heart within him was 
ashamed and afraid, forever afraid. 

He looked at the disconsolate violinist and envied him, 
felt that he himself was in a worse plight. The ruin of 
the musician’s career had been as dire and unmerited as 
his own, but the violinist’s shame was public. The post of 
omnibus was humble, but it was honest. People would 
blush to have him sit at their tables in his jacket, but 
what would they have done if Memling had sat there in 
the stripes he had earned 

Memling resolved within himself that the violinist was 
the luckier of the two. He had no need of shivering at 
every unexpected footfall or touch, lest it be a police- 
man’s. 

Nellie was in as great danger as Memling, but she 
had room in her heart for more pity. That was where they 
differed. Furthermore, it was Memling’s nature to run 
away from a painful strain on his sympathy. He was 
sorry for the fiddler, but it hurt him so to be sorry for 
anybody else that he was put to flight. 

Perhaps, too, he was not entirely comfortable over 
that look of mothering tenderness with which Nellie 
anointed the curls of the wretched fiddler. He grew rest- 
less, and said with some hint of a prior engagement : 

137 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“I’m afraid we must go now.” 

Instantly the violinist was on his feet, and once more 
an omnibus. 

“Excoose me for to keep you. I make your kellner 
to come quick.” 

He was up and away, and Nellie could see that the 
snobbish waiter “coised” the presumptuous omnibus un- 
der his breath. And the waiter treated Memling with so 
much disdain that Memling noticed it and threw him one 
of his most harpoonish glances. When the change was 
brought he dallied with the tip while the agonized waiter 
bustled frantically — ^helping Nellie on with her light wrap 
and keeping one wild eye on that longed-for coin. Dur- 
ing this punitive torture, the violinist went by with a tray 
loaded to the gunwales with used dishes. 

“I wonder if I ought to tip him, too,” Memling said. 
He may have been innocent of any malice, but Nellie bris- 
tled. 

“If you dare insult liim. I’ll never speak to you, Doik. 
He’s as poifect a gempman as you are.” 

“I hope so!” said Memling meekly enough. 

As they rose, Nellie suddenly spoke: “Lend me your 
pencil, will you.?” She sat down quickly, tore off a piece 
of the menu card, and scrawled on it a few lines. The 
omnibus was just making his return trip with an empty 
tray big as a Spartan shield. 

Nellie stopped him and put out her hand. He stared 
at it, then seized it, bent to kiss it, remembered what and 
where he was, and straightened up like a soldier. 

Nellie threw such a glance into Memling that he 
obediently put out his hand, too. He was ashamed to be 
seen shaking hands with a waiter, and he was more 
ashamed of being ashamed. But thief as he was, and 
138 


A Violinless Violinist 

unworthy of anybody’s tolerance as he felt himself, he 
was a gentleman by breeding and instinct, and he blushed 
like a spanked schoolboy as he made his w^ay past the 
gaping waiters, and took his hat and stick from the 
gaping checkroom boy. 

Pierre Bonpland had evidently escaped his apoplectic 
stroke, but he was ostentatiously busy in the farthest cor- 
ner, and did not bow Memling out as usual. 

Once in the street, Memling vented his spleen on Nellie, 
as usual. 

“What did you mean by making me shake hands with 
that waiter?” 

“I thought it would do the both of you good,” said 
Nellie. 

Memling swallowed that insult, though it went down 
hard, but he returned to the attack. 

“And what note was that you slipped into his 
hand.?” 

“That’s my poissonal affair,” said Nellie, listening 
anxiously. To her delight the shot told, and he rounded 
on her furiously. 

“Do you mean to say that you dare to flirt with a 
waiter in my presence?” 

A ripple of blissful laughter poured from her throat, 
and she hugged Memling’s elbow tight. 

“Don’t fret, Doik, I ain’t starting anything. I 
wouldn’t floit with anybody but you.” 

“Then what vras the note you gave him?” 

“Oh, that was nothing but the address of your studio 
— and an invite to call.” 

“Well, I’ll be ” 

“Oh, no, you won’t. I’m goin’ to try to help that 
poor dawg — if it’s the last act of my life. I wisht we 

139 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

hadn’t ’a’ had to leave him to the moicy of that awful 
head waiter.” 

“What are you going to do.?” 

Nellie risked another poisoned dart. 

“I want to hear him play.” 

Memling evaded with: 

“But he has no violin.” 

“Pm goin’ to get his fiddle out of hock for him.” 
“You’re not.” 

“I am. I guess I oined my money. I got a right to 
spend it, ain’t I.?” 

There was no answering this, so Memling sulked all 
the way, which put Nellie into the seventh heaven of a 
woman’s delight. 


CHAPTER XXVII 

’TWIXT FIDDLEDUM AND FIDDLEDEE 

T he studio was a harrowing sight next day. It 
showed all the ravages of removal. The great 
windows stripped of their hangings were glaring and 
stark, the walls were naked of pictures, and blank squares 
of raw color fought with the sun-toned tints of the gen- 
eral scheme. 

The floor, denuded of rugs, was bleak with packing 
cases like blocks of driftwood in a backwater of litter. 
The chairs were inhospitable in hempen overalls. 

Nellie and Memling and his man Friday, Herman 
Green, known to the police as “Slinky,” were pottering 
about in dismal weariness and disgust, all of them anx- 
ious to be aboard ship before the police discovered their 

140 


^Twixt Fiddledum and Fiddledee 

guilt. And they were afraid, too, lest other thieves break 
in and rob them. 

Suddenly the bell rang — and rang with startling 
sharpness in the unmuffled rooms. The three thieves 
stopped short, frozen with anxiousness, statues of terror. 
The bell rang again. Memling just managed to be strong 
enough to say to Slinky: 

“Herman, you may go to the door.” 

The little pickpocket made a pitiful grimace of timid 
protest. 

“It’s always ‘Let Hoiman do it,’ when anyt’ing un- 
pleasant’s gotta be did. Whilst de bulls is nabbin’ me, 
you can beat it over de back fence.” 

Memling swallowed hard and said: 

“Of course, if you’re afraid ” 

“Who’s afraid.^” said Slinky, as he moved off in 
knock-kneed palsy. 

He came back with the ashes of fright on his face. 

“Well, here dey are. It’s a detectuff in disguise.” 

“Are you sure.?^” said Memling, too scared to run. 

“Sure it’s a disguise. He’s got a old frock coat on 
and a wig dat come off a scarecrow.” 

“We c-can’t run away from one lonely guy.” 

“We can’t all go streaking over the back fence,” said 
Nellie. “Let’s invite him in and swat him with some- 
thing.^” 

That seemed an excellent idea. Memling told Slinky 
to get the lead pipe in the stocking, and take his stand 
behind the door, while Nellie opened it. When all was 
ready, she swung the door ajar and beckoned. 

In walked a curious figure. Just as he was passing 
under the sword of Slinky cles, Nellie gave a cry, and 
threw up her hands. Not knowing how else to make sure 

141 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

of Slinky, she fell back against him and squeezed him into 
the crevice behind the door, while she said: 

“I didn’t reco’nize you at foist.” Then she called to 
Memling, who had lingered at a discreet distance: “Oh, 
Doik, it’s Mr. — Mr. — it’s the omnibus.” 

The violinist shrank a little at this label, and Nellie 
made haste to explain: “You see, I don’t know your 
name.” She gave him her hand, and this time he 
kissed it. 

“My name,” he said, “is Eugen Berlepsch.” 

“Come again, please.” 

“Eugen,” he said in his German way. 

“Oikane,” was the best she could mimic it. 

“Berlepsch,” he added, and “Boilepsh” she made it. 
Then she introduced him to Memling. The introduction 
was well needed, too, for there was no resemblance be- 
tween the white-shirted, short-j acketed, aproned waiter 
and the musician in the obsolete frock coat and the fuzzy 
silk hat. Clothes do make the man, and he was as musi- 
cianly now as he had been waitery before. 

Slinky remained half smothered behind the door until 
he had a chance to enter the studio, be introduced on his 
own account, and affect surprise at the presence of a vis- 
itor whose visit he had nearly ended before it was begun. 

Memling apologized for the condition of his studio, 
and then flushed at having apologized to a waiter for any- 
thing. But, after the first shyness had worn off, Herr 
Berlepsch forgot that he had ever been anything but the 
polished artist. 

There was a piano in the studio, a rented piano wait- 
ing for the owner to call and remove it. Nellie, raising 
the front fall, soon had Berlepsch ensconced on a stool 
running his fingers over the keys. 

142 


"Twioot Fiddledum and Fiddledee 

“I play piano like a violinist,” he apologized, with a 
little laugh, but his audience was not too musical to be 
impressed by the harmonies he drew forth; and the bare 
walls and floors were to the piano’s advantage. 

“To think of that Musical Union toining you out to 
starve!” said Nellie. “How long you gotta wait before 
your time’s up.^”’ 

“I am already eligibility now two veeks,” said Ber- 
lepsch, “aber I have not yet the money for my dues.” 

Nellie offered to pay it. Now the artist blushed a 
fiercer scarlet than ever. To have a strange woman buy 
him into the union was too dire an humiliation to endure. 
Then Nellie, by sundry violent eye signals and gestures, 
finally made Memling understand what was needed. When 
at length he translated her sign language, he did the 
handsome thing handsomely. 

“If Herr Berlepsch will do me the honor of accepting 
the money as a loan,” he said, “it can be repaid at his 
convenience.” 

This was a trifle better, but pride was still opposing 
profit when Nellie bore down on Berlepsch with all her 
wiles, and before he knew it he had consented to “bor- 
row” Memling’s money purely as a favor to her. 

This served as a modulation to the real cause of his 
invitation to call. 

“You can’t do much in that union without your violin, 
can you. Hair Boilap.?” 

He shook his head dolefully. Nellie went on: “Mr. 
Memling wants to lend you money enough to get it out of 
soak — er, away from your uncle — don’t you, Doik.?” 

Doik didn’t know that he did, but he meekly insisted 
that there was nothing he was so eager to redeem as Herr 
Berlep&ch’s violin. 


143 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

This was the occasion for another spasm of blushing. 
The violinist twisted his long fiddle-wise fingers. 

‘‘Ach, ich ungliicklicher !” he wailed. “I did eat up 
the pawning money for my violine before I find me a yop; 
und one day I see a vindow vit a sign, who says ‘Pawn 
Tickets Purchased.’ I am so hungry and veak, I did sell 
the ticket. Better I had died before I did it, but I was so 
near dyink, I was not mineself.” 

Nellie shook her head in sympathetic misery. Even 
Memling understood the fellow’s double shame and regret. 

“Was it a nice violin was all Nellie could find to 
say. 

“Ach Himmel, she was a true Cremona.” 

“Maybe, Cremona would make you another,” said 
Nellie. 

As gently as he could, Herr Berlepsch explained that 
Cremona was a city and that the art of the luthier had 
long lost its glory there. 

“My violine,” he wailed, “she was made by the great 
Josef Guamerius. He call himself ‘del Gesh’ because he 
is so divine. He make her when he was in prison. The 
jailer’s daughter she brings him the wood.” 

“Just like a woman,” said Nellie. 

“It’s what you’d have done,” said Memling, and she 
almost perished with delight at the unusualness of praise 
from him. 

“The violinen he makes in the chail are not so fine as 
which he makes in his shop, but Josef del Gesu could not 
make a bad violine any more as Herr Memlink you could 
make a bad statue.” 

Memling looked rather unconvinced by this outra- 
geously unjustified compliment. But Berlepsch squared 
himself by explaining: 


144 , 


'Twioot Fiddledum and Fiddledee 


“I have not the pleasure had to see any of Herr Mem- 
link’s statues, but I know that nobody who is by a fellow 
artiste so kind und so filled up vit Gemiithlichkeit could be 
unkind to even a piece of marble.” 

He went on to say that his violin showed the hand of 
the master even with inferior woman-selected wood, and 
its value was not great as great violins go. Still it was 
a del Gesu and it had sung him into success. 

With the violin pawned and the ticket sold months ago, 
the situation had no ray of encouragement. But Mem- 
ling could always find a way out of a tangle, when he 
wanted to set his mind to it, and he was soon beckoning 
Nellie out into the hall. She made her excuses and left 
Berlepsch at the piano with Slinky, trying to entertain 
him by asking him if he could play “That Yiddisher 
Rag.” 

Memling closed the door after Nellie, and said: 

“You keep that crazy fiddler here, and I’ll go buy him 
a violin myself.” 

“But you wouldn’t know a good violin if you was hit 
over the head with it.” 

“Oh, that’s all poppycock,” said Memling. “He 
ought to be glad to get any kind of an instrument. One 
violin’s as good as another to such a man. I’ll pick up 
a cheap one over on Fourth Avenue. I doubt if he is 
much of an artist, and I don’t think he’ll ever know the 
difference.” 

“That’s mighty white of you, Doik. What makes 
you so kind to the poor dog all of a sudden .f’” 

“I’ll do anything to get him off your nerves,” he said 
gruffly. His resentment gave her strange satisfaction 
again, and she kissed him au revoir. 

She returned to the studio and lost herself in the rap- 

145 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

tures of a true musician’s improvisation. He ran from 
one thing to another, merging little German folk songs, 
and themes from great sonatas with wild fantasies of his 
own. 

Watching his fingers and his soul in full flight, she 
had no idea of time, and Memling’s long-delayed return 
struck her as amazingly prompt. He carried a shining 
new violin case, with a brand-new fiddle nesting in it, and a 
bow alongside. In the taxicab he had made up a pretty 
speech such as Memling alone could manage when he 
tried. He begged Berlepsch to accept the violin as a 
slight keepsake, and to honor them by christening it at 
once. 

Berlepsch, all gratitude and delight, gazed at the vio- 
lin as a father at his first born in its nurse’s arms. He 
paused, and a look of shock seemed to freeze him, as if 
he were not entirely pleased with what he saw. Then, 
with hungrily clutching fingers, he caught the instrument 
from the case, tightened the bow with a few twists, gave a 
few little thumping plucks, and drew his bow across the 
strings. 

Even Nellie and Slinky were disappointed by the 
squeak that resulted. On the violinist’s face came a look 
of intense distress. But he mastered it, and, forcing a 
very bad imitation of pleasure, proceeded to play, paus- 
ing now and then to reresin the bow, and take a new grip 
on himself and the smile that would not stay on. 

It was evident to all three auditors that the violin 
was an execrable patchwork made to sell, and that 
the tormented artist was trying not to hurt the feel- 
ings of the misguided Samaritans who had bought it for 
him. 

At last he gave up in despair. Cold sweat was bead- 

146 


^Twixt Fiddledum and Fiddledee 

ing his knotted forehead, and his smile was such as an 
undertaker fastens on a helpless corpse. 

Memling confessed: “It’s a pretty bad instrument, 
isn’t it.?” 

Nellie groaned: “It’s rotten.” 

But the victim of the gift murmured: “It — it takes 
the time to — to make a violine mellow. I give you one 
t’ousand t’anks. It is beautiful, and you are most kind. 
And now I must go once. You are mos’ busy, and they 
are needing me by the cafe.” 

He was so eager to be gone with his disappointment 
and his embarrassment that they could not hold him, and 
after many more thanks and good wishes and farewell 
bows, they let him escape. 

“I didn’t know there was so much difference in fiddles,” 
said Memling guiltily. 

“There’s a lot of difference in sculptors, isn’t there.?” 
said Nellie. “You can tell a Mike Angelo from a John 
Rogers quick enough, can’t you?” 

“But that’s marble,” said Memhng. 

“And this is music,” said Nellie. “And now poor 
Hair Burlap is woise off than when we foist met him. He’s 
got a bum fiddle and a broken heart.” 

She was inconsolable, but she could see no way out 
of the dilemma. There were myriads of tasks to be done 
before they sailed, and their tickets were bought for the 
day after the morrow. 


147 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


CHAPTER XXVIII 

A RAID ON THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM 

B y the next noon the studio was cleared of every- 
thing. Even the piano was away. The trunks for 
hold and cabin had gone, and there remained only the 
hand baggage to be taken to the dock in the taxicab that 
carried their uneasy souls to the pier the next morning. 

Memling foresaw a long absence from his native coun- 
try, which he had done so little to adorn and so much to 
disturb. He planned to begin sculpture seriously anew 
in some obscure corner of Europe. 

He was impelled to take a last look at the art treasures 
in the Metropolitan Museum. He did not know when he 
should see them again, and he knew that the galleries con- 
tained numbers of old masterpieces which Europe mourned 
for, unconsoled by the high prices with which our mil- 
lionaires had bribed their foreign owners. 

It was like a little introduction to the old world to go 
there, and to his artistic soul it was a sort of religious 
pilgrimage. 

He dragged Nellie along, though he warned her to be 
cautious of her opinions, for he knew that she was often 
Philistine and always outspoken. 

“I don’t think I could sincerely love any woman who 
held plebeian views of art,” he said. “So to be safe, be 
silent.” 

At the entrance he was compelled to leave his walk- 
ing stick, though he assured the attendant that he had 

148 


A Raid on the Metropolitan Museum 

no intention of poking holes in the canvases or whacking 
off the fingers and toes of the statues. 

In the entrance gallery he would not linger to study 
the^ examples of modem sculpture. He was hard to 
please, and he wanted to begin at the paintings on the 
floor above, then work down to the statuary, ending up 
with the casts from the revered classics. 

So Nellie, weary with the labor of packing, toiled up 
the long stairway. At the head, various vistas enticed 
them. Memling was for a room full of paintings. Nel- 
lie voted for a room full of porcelains. 

So they separated by mutual consent. He neither 
knew nor cared for any wares but marble, bronze, and 
canvas, and she, though she loved beautiful things, ex- 
hausted them — or herself — at a glance. She could not 
understand what kept Memling staring at one picture or 
one statue for an hour or more, making curious little 
groping gestures all the while. 

She read masterpieces as she read newspapers, skim- 
ming the headlines and skipping the editorials. 

Similarly Memling hardly expended a glance on the 
laces, chinas, and jewelries over which Nellie could hang 
in breathless suspense for an age. 

She moved slowly from case to case, decoyed farther 
and farther. Before she knew it, she was confronted 
with the collection of musical instruments. 

Music had taken on a new, a more personal interest 
since yesterday, and she forgot table ware for soul ware. 
She roved through a wilderness of curious devices for 
shocking the atmosphere. Nearly every imaginable sound- 
producing contrivance of mankind was shown, from the 
taU and tunable drum, the Aztec huehuetl, to the carved 
and frescoed piano of present luxury. 

149 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

There were the pan’s pipes of Grecian shepherds, the 
tangled trumpets of Wagner, gypsy dulcimers, Eliza- 
bethan spinets, Bible regals that folded up into a book, 
lutes, theorbos, Russian balalaikas, Irish harps, bagpipes, 
oboes, bassoons, viole d’amore and di gamba, simple 
Welsh fiddles with the appalling-looking name of 
“crwth” — everything, it seemed, that could make a noise 
for those who blow through brass, breathe through silver, 
pull a string, hammer on wires, thump a sheepskin, or rub 
a catgut the right way. 

And so she came to the group of violins, examples 
of the master designers’ art, the Amati, the Stradivari, 
the Guarneri, Bergonzi, Maggini, Vuillaume, Lupot, 
Stainer, Hill — all those names which to the violin col- 
lector are as the apostles to a priest. 

Nellie could think only of her discovery, the forlorn 
genius disguised as an omnibus. She ran through the gal- 
leries hunting Memling till she found him poring over a 
painting by Cimabue, in which Nellie could see nothing 
but bad drawing. She haled him away, and pointed to the 
imprisoned violins. 

‘‘Look at ’em!” she gasped, “hanging there like dead 
boids in a hunter’s game bag. They’re just bustin’ wide 
open with music, and nobody can touch ’em. Ain’t it a 
shame? I ask you, ain’t it? 

“Why, it’s like cutting out the tongue of a canary,” 
she ran on, “or puttin’ a gag on Caruso. Talk about 
old Roger Van Veen’s sound-proof sleeping apartment. 
We stuffed one watchman into it for a while. If they 
v/as to lock Melbar, and Tetraseeny, and Plongson, and 
Paderooski, and Kubelik, and — I don’t know who all — in 
that room for life, it wouldn’t be any woise than what 
you see here. 


150 


A Raid on the Metropolitan Museum 

“Think of it ! Violins locked up in a case. Pictures 
and statues — yes; they talk sign language, but you can’t 
have a voiceless singer. It’s just like committing moider 
to keep these song boids shut up. And that poor Hair 
Boilap going about without a single fiddle he can lay 
hands on, and here they got silent fiddles to boin.” 

“I thought you were leading up to that omnibus,” 
said Memling peevishly. “Can’t a woman ever generalize? 
I can understand why you object to making deaf mutes 
out of great musical instruments, but would you ever have 
thought of it if you hadn’t taken a fancy to that waiter?” 

“Maybe I would and maybe I wouldn’t,” said Nellie. 
“But I can’t see that generalizin’ ever did anybody any 
good woith doing. The thing is that a grand artist hasn’t 
got a violin to play on, and I’m going to get busy right 
here.” 

“Why — what do you mean?” Memling gasped, his 
horror showing that he knew well enough. 

“You know as well as I do,” she said. “I’m not going 
to leave this country without leaving poor Boilap a de- 
cent fiddle, and here’s where I pluck one right off the fiddle 
tree.” 

“Are you crazy Memling gasped. “Don’t you 
know the place is guarded?” 

“All I gotta do,” Nellie persisted stubbornly, “is to 
run this di’mond ring of mine round the glass, when no- 
body’s looking, lift out the fiddle, and scoot.” 

“Yes, and just about the time the glass cracks, a 
guard will walk along, see the empty space, and catch you 
before you get to the head of the stairs. Then our trip 
to Europe subsides into a jaunt up the river as guests of 
the State.” 

“I guess I got another think cornin’,” said Nellie 

151 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

weakly. She stood pondering furiously a few minutes. 
Then she said: 

“I’ll be back here in half an hour or so. You can 
browse around that long and then meet me over by that 
majolica dream — and don’t you fail to be there when I 
arrive back.” 

She had pointed out the rendezvous and was hurry- 
ing away before Memling could check her to rebuke her 
for ordering him about. The meek and lowly Nellie was 
certainly growing up. 

The appointed hour did not bring Nellie to the ma- 
jolica tryst. Memling fumed and worried, imagining 
everything appalling. At last she appeared, walking with 
a limp — walking with a crutch! 

He flew to her aid, and assisted her to a bench. 

“What in Heaven’s name has happened ! Did you get 
hit by a taxi — or what.?” 

“What.” She smiled, glowing with joy to see how 
anxious he was in her behalf. In a subdued voice she 
raced through an explanation, chewing gum madly the 
while. 

“When you said they’d miss the violin as soon as we 
swiped it, I saw at once you was right. I says, we gotta 
have a substitute. So I hurry out, pick up a taxi, and tell 
the driver to take me down Thoid Avenue and stop at the 
foist toy shop. We jogged along under the El for a 
million miles. Finally we strike a big store. I says 
‘Wait.’ In I fly, find my way to the musical instru- 
ments, and right before my eyes is a lovely violin marked 
down to four dollars and ninety-eight cents — was five 
dollars and ten cents. I could see it was like the one you 
palmed oflp on poor Hair Boilap — fair of face, but false 
of heart. ‘Wrap it up,’ I says. 

152 


A Raid on the Metropolitan Museum 

The lady-like sales gent says, ‘Will you have a nice 
case?’ ‘No, thanks,’ I says. ‘Nor a nice bow?’ he says. 
‘Nor a nice bow,’ I says. ‘Just wrap it up, and step 
lively, or I’ll be late to my vawdville toin across the 
street.’ Then I go down to the artificial-limb depart- 
ment and get me a crutch. 

“Then I scoot for the street, jump into my .taxi, and 
here I am back again.” 

Memling broke in. “But the crutch — your accident 
— ^T^’hat was it?” 

Nellie wrestled with a laughter that would have 
startled the whole museum. 

“You’re slow to-day, Doik. When we came in, they 
made you pass over your cane, didn’t they? I knew 
they’d hold up a violin, for fear I’d try to give a con- 
cert to the mummies. A violin is a thing you can’t palm, 
or tuck up your sleeve, or hide in your hat. So that’s 
why I limp. I’ve got a fiddle for a shin guard. With 
these hobble skoits us women have to wear, I had to have 
an excuse. So I carry the crutch, and people very po- 
litely look away when I limp — not to hoit my feelings.” 

Now that his uneasiness was set at rest, he could 
aflTord to make a protest. 

“WiU you please quit chewing gum? You know I 
abominate it. Why do you do it?” 

“I need it in my business,” she said. Then she out- 
lined her campaign, and aroused in him enough of the joy 
of thievery to end his reluctance. 

He took her left arm, and with the crutch under her 
right, she hunched her way into the violin room and sank 
on a bench near her prey. 

There were few visitors in the museum because it was 
one of the days when a small admission is charged, but 

153 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

a group of rurals insisted on discussing the violins and 
lingering till Nellie was tempted to brain them with her 
crutch. Before they went, others came and went. But at 
last there was a lull in the sluggish stream. 

One uniformed guard lingered. Nellie gave a gasp 
and her head fell back weakly, her hand beat the air. 
Memling ran to the guard, forced a coin in his not un- 
willing hand, and begged him to bring a drink of water. 
He hurried out, and instantly Nellie was as busy as a 
cabinet medium at a scientific investigation. 

She bent down swiftly, whipped up her skirts, dis- 
closing a violin fastened to the inner side of her calf with 
a piece of wrapping cord and a garter. She got the 
fiddle free without delay, and slipped it under a light 
shawl she carried on her arm. 

Meanwhile Memling was leaning over a glass case 
containing a violin which a card described as a Stradivari, 
on which Paganini had played. Memling seemed to be 
studying the instrument’s exquisite contours and its ven- 
erably dim luster. 

Actually he was cutting away the glass with a dia- 
mond. 

Before the plate was quite released, another guard 
sauntered in with maddening deliberation. Any moment 
the first would return with the water. Memling cast a 
glance at Nellie, and, advancing to the guard, said he 
wanted to ask a question about an old clavichord. He 
led the man briskly to the remotest corner available. 

The lame woman rose, reached the glass case in an 
instant, completed the operation on the glass, raised one 
edge gently, slipped her hand in, lifted out the ancient 
prisoner, laid it on the glass, took from her shawl the 
$4.98 fiddle, lowered it into the room made sacred by the 

154 



‘She got the fiddle free without delay’’ 





% 


A Raid on the Metropolitan Museum 

Stradivari, removed a surprising quantity of chewing 
gum from her mouth, affixed it to the glass at the cor- 
ners, set the glass in place, and fell back to the bench, 
with her shawl partly covering the Stradivari, glanced 
round huntedly, bent, whipped up her skirts, slipped the 
scroll of the violin’s head through her garter, made a few 
hasty loops with the cord, tied a speedy knot, and was 
sitting up in a flutter of real and feigned excitement 
when the guard came back with the glass of water. She 
drank it with gusto, for her mouth was parched with the 
fever of danger. She thanked the guard so much and 
asked him to call her brother — Mr. Warburton. 

Memling thanked his decoy for his information, 
tipped the guard who went for the water, tipped him liber- 
ally but not ostentatiously, and gathered up his weak sis- 
ter, who went slowly with her crutch, followed by the 
sympathetic glances of the guards, who agreed that it was 
“too bad so purty a lady should be so lame.” 

A taxicab took them to the Hotel Astor. They dis- 
missed the man, entered at the Forty-fifth Street en- 
trance, and left at the Forty-fourth Street exit. A sec- 
ond taxicab took them to the studio. Nellie limped into 
the house, and achieved a miraculous recovery, throwing 
away her crutch, and producing a Stradivari violin from 
nowhere. 

She was insanely impatient to see her Hair Burlap and 
dazzle him with a genuine Strad, not made in prison, but 
escaped from prison. 

She would listen to nothing but dining at the cafe 
where he wore yet a while the livery of servitude. So 
Memling took her there, grumbling mightily against the 
trouble and the danger and the jealousy this weak little 
omnibus had led him through. 

155 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

The head waiter was distantly courteous and in- 
formed them that the omnibus had been given his notice. 
He had asked for the dinner hour off, as he had to see 
some theater orchestra leader about something. He had 
promised to be at work at eleven when the after-theater 
tide set in as usual. 

All that Nellie could arrange was that the head 
waiter should tell the omnibus Hair Burlap to come with- 
out fail to Mrs. Memling’s studio at eight the next 
morning. They sailed at ten. 

At eight the next morning the swallows were all made 
ready to fly. The studio was an empty shell, already 
rented by the landlord who had never known from what 
revenue his rent had been more or less regularly paid — 
and might not ever know how the next tenant earned his 
income. 

It was nine o’clock when Berlepsch was made out 
strolling down the street. The message had come to him 
at second hand and had reached him all awry. It took 
him some time to make his explanations in his courtly 
and laborious English and to say that he had been ad- 
mitted to the Musical Union and secured a post in a 
it theater orchestra. 

Then Nellie, who would not be balked of her cere- 
mony, made a little speech, which was almost as much of a 
surprise to Memling as to Berlepsch. 

“Mein Hair — ahem! — ahem!” she began. “Day be- 
fore yesterday Mr. Memling as a little joke on you made 
you a present of a cheap fiddle. You behaved like a 
poifect gent and a true sport. But all the while Mr. 
Memling had up his sleeve a little surprise. The last 
time he was in Europe he was gave a very nice violin by 
a soitain party who said it was made by a very good 

156 


A Raid on the Metropolitan Museum 

violiner. He wasn’t sure just who sawed it out and pasted 
it together, but he thought it was a real nice violin, and 
would sound swell in the hands of the right party, 
and here it is, and a nice new bow we bought yes- 
terday.” 

Herr Berlepsch quivered. He had been shocked 
once. Why not again He took from Nellie’s hand the 
violin, and prepared for more polite lies. 

His eyes widened as he gazed. His head bent closer. 
His hands recognizM the blood royal of that varnish, 
that prince of the house of Cremona, something about 
the individuality, the uniqueness of wood and purfling, 
sound holes, balance, ratio — all the things that make an 
autograph recognizable. 

The first tribute from his silent awe was his quick 
search for a label. He had not looked for the label of the 
first one Memling gave him. He found none on the sec- 
ond, for Memling had carefully removed this little 
legend : 

Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis 
Faciebat Anno 1704. 

It was fascinating to watch the omnibus fondling that 
violin. He seemed too awe-struck to assail it with a bow. 

By and by he gently thumbed the strings, reverently 
tightened them into tune. He hesitated with the bow for 
a long while. Then with a smile of beatific oblivion, he 
raised the violin to his cheek, closed his eyes, poised his 
bow, and drew one long deep tone from the G string. It 
had the sonorous moan of a human soul, a man’s soul in 
despair. 

Then he gave voice to the E string, and it was a 
woman’s voice, clear and vibrant, honey sweet. Then he 

157 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

evoked a rich four-toned chord ; tested the harmonics, and 
found them eerily fluty. 

His fingers stopped the strings as if at random, and 
his bow wandered at will, tunelessly yet with fascination. 

For a long time he experimented. Once more he had 
forgotten that listeners existed. But they stared with 
eyes and ears. It was a new thing in their world — to 
see a starved music-soul feasting. 

And finally he began to play — melodies that seemed 
to be dug out of the very deeps of sorrow, and others 
that seemed to leap into the very core of heavenly beati- 
tude. 

He played on and on in a frenzy, a chaos of all 
moods, griefs, rhapsodies, tragedies, buffooneries, songs, 
and speeches. 

At last he opened his wet eyes and saw his audience 
one triple stare. He wanted to be afraid and ashamed 
and to apologize. But Memling alone could speak, and 
he could only say: 

“Wonderful!” But he threw a look of profound ap- 
proval and applause to Nellie. 

Nellie concealed her hysterical longing to cry very 
hard and laugh very hard at the same time, by a casual 
question : 

“Have you any idea who made that violin .f”’ 

^Ach ja! Ja gewissT' 

“Who.?” 

“Her Herr Gott.” 

Nellie whispered to Memling: “And to think they’d 
put us in jail if they knew we set that fiddle free. I 
think they’d ought to hang the man that put it in a 
cage.” 

Then they woke to the fact that they were supposed 

158 


The B oat-miss ers 

to be on their way to the steamer. Everything was for- 
gotten in a frantic desire to be aboard, a harrowing fear 
of being too late. The handclasps with the violinist were 
mere clutches and escapes; the farewells hasty words 
flung backward. The taxicab, flying like the wind, 
seemed to crawl; everything that could get in the way 
got in the way. 

As their frantic chariot slewed round a comer into 
West Street, the two thieves within caught a glimpse of 
the steamer they had hoped to catch. It was already in 
midstream, already being urged seaward by a gang of 
tough little tugs as busy as a tribe of ants navigating a 
paralyzed caterpillar. 

The people on the docks were still yelling “Bong 
Voyadge!” but the people on the decks were mere hand- 
kerchiefs waving “Aw revawr !” Distance was merci- 
fully softening the blare of the steamer band, made up 
of peevish musicians, who must shortly lay off their 
bravery and revert to stewardship, mere bed making, and 
the rushing of first aid to the seasick. 


CHAPTER XXIX 
THE BOAT-MISSERS 

A S Memling recognized the steamer by her funnels and 
her long, low lines, he tried to mask his appalling 
disappointment. All he said to Nellie was: 

“Well, there goes our ocean greyhound.” 

And all Nellie said was: 

“Greyhound.? It’s built more like a dachshund.” 
With the obstinacy of human nature, the taxi driver 
159 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

went on to his empty destination, sped down the rumbling 
pier to the hauled-in gangway, and, stopping short, with 
a spine-cracking jolt, turned to apologize. 

“Pm sorry, boss. I done me best.” 

“It wasn’t your fault, shofure,” said Nellie. “That 
was a fine boist of speed you made.” 

“A fine burst of speed,” echoed Memling, “and got 
us here half an hour too late for the steamer.” 

“And a couple of days too oily for the next one,” said 
Nellie. 

They descended, and glared grappling hooks at the 
vanishing leviathan. If wishes were aeroplanes, they 
would have started in pursuit. 

“We could make it in two jumps,” Nellie quoted, 
with a sickly pluck. 

.Already the homegoing greeters were straggling back, 
grinning at the manifest plight of the taxicab bulging 
with steamer rugs and hand luggage, flaunting the name 
of the departed boat. 

Finally, Nellie said: “Well, I guess we gotta crawl 
into the taxi again, and go back home.” 

“Go where.?” Memling snorted. “Home.? Have you 
forgotten that we’ve rented the studio.?” 

“That’s so,” sighed Nellie. “No place to go but Out!” 

The sight of that taxicab was intolerable to Memling. 
He could not endure the humiliation of going to a hotel 
with such a blatant advertisement of the boat-misser’s luck. 
He arranged to have his things stored in the parcel room 
on the pier, and dismissed the driver with a mournful tip. 

“Whatta we going to do now.?” said Nellie. 

“We’ll take a walk and talk it over.” 

“We got time for quite a stroll,” smiled Nellie, and 
she jogged along at Memling’s elbow. Both were silent 

160 


The Boat-missers 

about the great fear that possessed them. The loss of 
their passage money was unimportant, for, as Nellie 
said, they “had so much dough it was a boiden to tote 
their poises.” 

But time was more than money. A peculiar irony 
seemed to have played with their plans. 

A bit of ill-timed generosity had led them to rescue 
the violinless violinist from his despair. Out of grati- 
tude, he had wished to play them a few strains on the 
glorious instrument. And their harmonious souls had 
lingered to listen. Surely a purer motive could never 
have beguiled two hearts. But sarcastic fate had chosen 
this very sweetness of their natures to betray them withal. 

Both Nellie and Memling realized this, and repented 
their temporary aberration into the dangerous realm of 
human kindliness. 

“It’s all my fault, Doik,” she sighed. “It was the 
only decent toin I ever did anybod}", and it didn’t woik.” 

“I always said,” Memling admitted, “that a good 
thief must stick strictly to business.” 

“You was right, Doik; once a boiglar, always a 
boiglar. Sumpum told me we’d never get that boat.” 

“And something tells me,” said Memling, “that we’ll 
never get the next one.” 

“We gotta get it,” said Nellie. “Every day we spend 
in this boig is dangerous. Maybe we’d better go over 
to Joisey City, and stay till the next boat goes.” 

“To stay in Jersey City would be suspicious in it- 
self,” said Memling. “We’d better talk of something 
else.” 

“That’s right. It’s getting on me noives.” 

By now they had left the pier and' were picking their 
way across the atrocious pavement of New York’s water 

161 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

front. Memling turned back to cast a resentful glance 
at the scene of their discomfiture. 

“Look at that dock — at all those docks !” he growled. 
“They’re nothing more nor less than a row of enormous 
woodsheds. The approach to a city like this ought to be 
majestic. It ought to prepare the visitor for a world 
capital. The departing voyager ought to carry away a 
memory of nobility. New York is a wonderful city, but 
her water front would disgrace Cripple Creek.” 

“What would you put there — a regular Luna Park.?” 

“There ought to be great plazas and colonnades and 
towers,” Memling answered. “The day is past for build- 
ing tin barns like those. Look at the new railroad sta- 
tions — they’re handsome as Greek temples. The ocean 
lines ought to do even better. Now, if I had my way, 
I’d make the companies put up a marble structure there, 
with a proper approach, with columns and a few statues. 
Gad, it would be just the place for that pediment group 
I began in Italy when I was a gentleman and an artist. 
I’ve got money enough now to quit stealing. If I can 
only get away from here. I’ll go to Italy and try to find 
my poor lost statues again. To be honest once more — 
and a sculptor once more — ah, if it could only be !” 

“It’s gotta be, Doik,” Nellie vowed tenderly. “You’ll 
never have to pull off another job in your life. It costs a 
lot to be honest; but, thank the good Lord, your last 
stunt was a wholesale clean-up, and you can afford to re- 
tire. You’ve gotta begin sculping again, Doik. You 
make all the other marble-cutters look like thoity cents. 
What’s Patrick Angelo to you, or John Goojon.? And 
as for that Frenchman, Rodang — you can do better with 
one hand tied behind you.” 

“Thanks, Nellie; but we’d better not paint our Easter 

162 


The Great Van Veen Again 


eggs before they are laid. As a child, I was taught that 
if you told what you wished, you didn’t get your wish. 
Let’s talk of something else. Let’s talk of a fa9ade of 
that ghastly dock. It’s a howling disgrace.” 

At this artistic instant, Memling felt an unseen hand 
pounce on his shoulder, and heard a gruff voice: 

“Dirk Memling, I arrest you!” 

His heart stopped, and the blood seemed to evaporate 
from his body. His knees hardly upheld him till he could 
turn his head; and then his chalky face almost touched 
the face of — of Roger Van Veen himself. 


CHAPTER XXX 

THE GREAT VAN VEEN AGAIN 

S O absorbed had the sculptor and his model been in 
their real thoughts and their superficial comments 
that they had not heard or heeded the approach of a 
soft-gliding automobile. The chauffeur, seeing them 
standing fast, did not sound his horn, but was about to 
pass them, when Van Veen prodded him, and motioned 
him to stop. He came to a halt almost on Memling’s 
heels, and old Van Veen, leaning out of the car, lis- 
tened a moment, then clapped his hand on Memling’s 
shoulder, and spoke in as near an approach to a police- 
manly prof undo as he could manage. 

If Memling and Nellie had been a trifle less petrified 
with the uncanny suddenness of their victim’s apparition, 
they would have fled in opposite directions at once. But 
before they could make a step. Van Veen’s face was pur- 

163 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

pling with laughter. He was writhing and hissing senile 
cachination : 

“Oh-oh-ho! That was beautiful! I had you scared 
that time. He-he-he, but you actually turned pa-ha-hale. 
It was the best jo-ho-hoke I ever saw-haw-haw. Oh- 
-oh-ho, you turned positively gree-he-he-heen !” 

He was asphyxiated with laughter, and blinded with 
gleeful tears. Nellie and Memling had abundant leisure’ 
to recover their wits and exchange glances that sang 
hallelujahs of relief. They could hardly believe that this 
old plutocrat, who could see through the jungles and 
meshes of Wall Street finance, could be fooled twice by 
two plain thieves ; that he could stand and gibe innocently 
at them, like an April fool, while their pockets bulged 
with his money. 

But there he was, guileless, gullible, and gulled, laugh- 
ing himself toward apoplexy. 

‘T hope he chokes,” Nellie whispered to Memling. 
But by the time the old dotard had wiped his eyes and 
his misty glasses, and resumed control of his emotions, 
they had regained control of theirs. They were ready 
to fence with him for their lives and liberties. 

They waited for him to speak. His first words were: 

“Which way are you bound Get in and I’ll drop 
you there.” 

For lack of inspiration, Memling fell back on the 
truth as a last desperate resort. 

“We aren’t going anywhere. We have no place 
to go.” 

He explained the plan for a trip to Europe, the sur- 
render of the studio, which another artist had snapped 
up, the missing of the steamer, and their embarrass- 
ment. 


164 


The Great Van Veen Again 


A look of suspicion crossed Van Veen’s face, and Nel- 
lie read it at once. She remembered that Memling had 
introduced her to Van Veen as the widow of an imaginary 
artist and art collector named Vaughan. 

She drew a long face and said, trying mightily to re- 
member to avoid her East Side dialect: 

“When you paid me so liberal — ly for those pitchers 
— pict-ures that my poor husband collected, I decided to 
go back to Europe, where I could be near the places 
where we was — were so happy together.” 

“Where you and Memling were so happy together?” 
Van Veen interrupted, with quick jealousy. 

“Oh, no. I was referring to my poor Henry.” 

“I thought his first name was John, Mrs. Vaughan.” 

“That was his foist — his first name, but he used to 
have one before that. He dropped it, you know — like 
artists often do. But I often called him Henry.” 

“I see,” said Van Veen. “But Memling ” 

“He’s my cousin, you know.” 

“No, I didn’t know.” 

“Didn’t you? Oh, yes; he’s always been my cousin. 
He thought he ought to go over to Europe and get into 
the atmosphere. You know, there’s so little atmosphere 
in this town that artists gets asphyxionated. So I ad- 
vised him to go abroad, and we were taking the same 
steamer. He was kind enough to wait for me, and I’m 
always late, so I missed his boat for ’um — for him.” 

Old Van Veen seemed partly satisfied and greatly re- 
lieved. He said with sudden briskness: 

“Ah, I have just the idea. Since you two outcasts 
are alone and homeless in New York, suppose you take 
pity on me, and go out to Claremont for luncheon with 
me.?” 


165 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


Memling and Nellie ransacked their souls for some ex- 
cuse. But even while they were rummaging for previous 
engagements, Van Veen had hoisted them into his car, 
and had given his driver instructions to lay the course 
due north. 

The two thieves felt like prisoners. Memling thought 
of the tumbrels that carted aristocrats to the guillotine. 
Nellie thought of nothing more picturesque than the pa- 
trol wagon. 

Both wanted to leap out and run. Both were afraid 
to budge. Terror robbed them of all pleasure in the sit- 
uation, but Memling’s pride moved him to say: 

“We go on one condition, Mr. Van Veen: that you 
allow me to be host at luncheon. You furnish the trans- 
portation, I furnish the fodder.” 

Millionaires are so constantly standing treat, and so 
rarely treated, that they seize an invitation with the 
hunger of street Arabs. 

Van Veen did not debate the point. He cried: 

“Delighted !” 

Memling’s pride was flattered only a moment, for he 
realized that he would be paying for Van Veen’s food 
with Van Veen’s money. Van Veen would be standing 
treat, after all. 

This would have amused Memling once, but now he 
was so converted to the hope of a new and blameless life 
that the success of his deception merely sickened him. 

And then Van Veen scared him again — for, after all, 
the bravest thief must inevitably be as timorous as a rab- 
bit. The capitalist’s face took on a sudden scowl. “And 
now I want to ask you a very serious question, Mr. Mem- 
ling: What conspiracy have you been planning against 
me and my money.?” 


166 


The Great Van Veen Again 


“Conspiracy?” Memling echoed feebly. 

“Yes. What are you planning to do with my prop- 
erty.?” 

“Your property?” And again he could only play 
the parrot. 

“My docks ! Pm one of the owners of the pier you 
were criticizing. What’s the matter with our docks?” 

“Nothing — they’re quite all right.” 

“But before I played detective and put my hand on 
your shoulder, in good old Third Avenue melodrama 
style, I eavesdropped for a moment.” 

Memling and Nellie died again. How much had the 
old fox overheard? He did not keep them in a long 
suspense. 

“I heard you say my ghastly docks were a howling 
disgrace.” 

This was not terrifying, but it was embarrassing. 
Thus cornered, Memling could not deny his treason. He 
attempted to make the most of it. 

“Well, you see, Mr. Van Veen, we artists and you 
business men have different points of view. When you 
put up a dock or a depot, you think mainly of capacity 
and economy. We artists think of the effect of the land- 
scape. It would be so splendid if the water front of New 
York were worthy of the great city, and the glorious 
river, and the big ocean, and the world’s attention. New 
York is becoming a real capital, but I don’t think those 
sheds of yours do us justice.” 

Van Veen seemed to be impressed. He said meekly: 
“Well, doctor, what would you prescribe in their 
place ?” 

“Architecture.” 

“But we can’t afford architecture.” 

167 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“The first company to house its dock in a real build- 
ing would be more than repaid.” 

“He’s right,” said Nellie, “there’s no press agent like 
a swell front.” 

This gave the financier pause. “I never thought of 
that. There may be something in it.” 

Memling outlined his scheme a little further, and 
Nellie suggested: 

“Tell him about your impediment group.” 

“It’s too painful,” said Memling. 

“Then I’ll tell him,” she said. But at this moment 
the car whirled them up to the Claremont steps, and their 
thoughts were busied with the ordering of the lunch. The 
feast began with cocktails, and went along the gamut 
with completeness. Memling was host, and he hoped to 
stupefy his prey with food. 

“I wish I’d brought along some knock-out drops,” 
Nellie whispered to him, as Van Veen turned to shake 
hands with a passing acquaintance. 

When the ceremony of ordering the feast was ended. 
Van Veen paid no heed to what the advertisements called 
“the lordly Hudson, queen of rivers.” He fixed his eyes 
on Nellie with admiration. 

“You are looking extremely well, Mrs. Vaughan. 
I’m glad you missed your boat. It’s an ill wind, you 
know.” 

But Nellie was in no mood for flirtation. “I was 
going to tell you,” she said, “about Cousin Doik’s — 
Dirk’s impediment group.” 

“Oh, yes,” said Van Veen, “but just what is an im- 
pediment group — one of those things that prevents you 
from seeing anything.^” 

Nellie was floundering, but Memling intervened. 

168 


The Great Van Veen Again 

“You misunderstood Mrs. Vaughan,” he said. “She did 
not say impediment, but pediment.” 

“Oh, excuse me,” said Van Veen, with a confused 
idea that his ears must be failing. Then Memling ex- 
plained, rather for Nellie’s assistance than for Van 
Veen’s. 

“You know that in a classic building like a temple 
or a Capitol, above the row of columns there is usually a 
long, low triangle made by the apex of the roof. They 
call that space the pediment, and often they fill it with 
a group of statues, the ones in the comers lying down, 
and the others rising gradually to the tall central figure.” 

“Oh, yes; quite so,” said Van Veen. “I think I have 
noticed something of the sort on the Stock Exchange. 
And you made one of those — er — pediment groups, you 
say.?” 

“Yes,” Nellie broke in. “It was several years back. 
You see, one of the State gove’ments was building a new 
Capitol building. The artshitect decided to have one of 
those pediment things, and they had a prize comp’tition. 
Doik, my cousin here, win the prize, and goes to Italy 
to do the woik — ^work. He had about elevum of the 
statues nearly finished, and he had a gang of Eyetalian 
stone-choppers to help him. After he’d run himself up 
the pole for several thousand bones, along comes a new 
district attorney, one of those trouble-making snoopers, 
who wants a receipt for everything. He gets wise to the 
politicians grafting something terrible, so he holds up 
the woik on the job, and railroads half a dozen State sen- 
ators and contractors and things into the penitentiary. 

“They got their desoits, I suppose, and there’d ought 
to be more politicians and less boiglars in striped pa- 
jamas; but the one that got hoit the woist was the inno- 

169 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

cent party — as per usual. Poor Mr. Memling, chopping 
away in Italy, gets woid that his statues won’t be needed. 
He’s spoiled all that marble, and he owes everybody in 
sight, expecting to pay the costs out of the check he’s 
going to pull down from the State. But the State treas- 
urer cables him ‘Nothin’ doin’. Knock off woik and get 
home the best you know how.’ 

“He pays his woikmen every cent he has, and leaves 
his marbles where they stand, and retoins home in the 
steerage, with nothing in his pockets but a broken heart, 
and a rooned life. That’s what comes of being the only 
honest man on a job.” 

Van Veen was so fascinated by Nellie’s beauty that he 
overlooked her solecisms — he had understood that she had 
originally been the model of the late lamented Vaughan. 
And the old capitalist was so fascinated by her voice that 
he came as near being touched with pity as his little stock 
ticker of a heart could attain. Where another would 
have shed tears, or groaned, or at least mustered a sigh, 
he managed only to click his tongue with a sympathetic 
“ts-ts-ts !” But for him that was what a spasm of sobs 
would be to a more emotional temperament. 

Nellie little realized how profoundly she had affected 
him — for him — and she wanted to wring his neck for his 
coldness. But she said nothing. He thought for some 
time, and cleaned up his pilaff of chicken livers with the 
thoroughness that marked most of his dealings. Then 
he was ready to speak, but even now he was cautious. He 
addressed himself always to. Nellie, trying to curry favor 
with her. 

“As I understand it, Mrs. Vaughan, your idea is that 
my transatlantic company should tear down its sheet-iron 
docks, put up a handsome — er — temple of transportation, 

170 


The Great Van Veen Again 

and use for its decoration your cousin’s pediment group. 
Do I get you?” 

“You get the idea,” said Nellie, who could be cau- 
tious, too. 

“And you think that Mr. Memling could find his 
statuary again?” 

Memling broke in. “I imagine so. I hope so. Un- 
less the blocks of marble have been used for other pur- 
poses.” The bare thought of this sent a knife through 
him. 

Now Van Veen found himself on his own ground of 
dollars and cents. 

“And how much do you estimate that all this would 
cost?” 

“I’ve never figured it out,” said Memling. “I 
haven’t the faintest notion.” 

“I see,” said Van Veen. “We might make a rough 
computation, if you would care to take the time. The 
scheme interests me. I may say that it interests me 
greatly! Let’s adjourn somewhere where we can have a 
good talk. My town house is closed up, and I’m living 
at one of the clubs while my country house is being made 
ready. Rather nice place I have up in Ucayga. I wish 
you could see it. Some nice works of art there — not so 
many as I had before those damned thieves — you’ll par- 
don me, I hope, but you see a gang of crooks, pretending 
to wield a cinematograph, looted my place.” 

Nellie choked a little on her expression of horrified 
sympathy, and Memling gulped some wine to oil his 
tongue, before he could even say: “You don’t mean it.” 

“I do mean it,” said Van Veen. “The villains thought 
they were very clever, but my detectives are close after 
them. We’ll have them all in a day or two, they say.” 

171 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Memling tried to mumble “I hope so,” but it was 
hard enough to look it. 

Van Veen, fortunately, shifted the subject. 

“But let’s talk of pleasanter things. As I was say- 
ing, I have no place to take you. What if I came to 
you.^ Have you decided where you intend to stop till 
the next boat.?” 

The only name that Memling could think of was “The 
Waldorf,” so he said that. Van Veen looked at him 
with amusement. 

“You artists certainly take good care of yourselves. 
I couldn’t afford to put up there myself. But, if you 
agree, we’ll all go to the Waldorf, and we can figure it 
out there. If it looks feasible, you can go on abroad in 
your steamer and begin the search at once. Our time is 
very short.” 

Memling was so exalted by this undreamed-of pros- 
pect that the Waldorf seemed none too extravagant a 
place to draw up the protocol. He assented heartily, and 
Van Veen rose. 

“Good! If you’ll excuse me. I’ll go telephone my 
office that I’ll not be down this afternoon.” 

And he was gone. Memling’s hopes went with him. 

“He’ll never come out of that booth alive. He’ll have 
apoplexy, I know. Oh, if God would only let me get 
back on my feet, and become an artist, I’d turn out a 
masterpiece that would atone for all I’ve done. If I 
could only finish my group, I’d accept the penitentiary 
or the electric chair without a complaint.” 

Nellie did not answer. Nellie was praying. Seated 
there among the frivolous, she had bent her pretty head, 
and clasped her hands in petition. 

The Van Veen they had so feared to meet, so longed 

172 


The Great Van Veen Again 

to escape, was suddenly become their anchor, their main- 
stay. 

Memling’s cynicism snuffed out his brief candle flare 
of hope. Ignoring Nellie’s closed eyes, he maundered: 

“It won’t work, Nellie; it won’t. It’s too beautiful 
to be possible. We’ve fooled Van Veen so far, but we’ll 
reach the limit any minute now. No man builds up a for- 
tune from nothing, as Van Veen has done, without being 
terribly wise and terribly merciless. He may make a few 
mistakes, but he won’t keep on blundering. No fool 
could have accomplished what Van Veen has done.” 

From the depths of her prayer, Nellie whispered: 
“He’s an old man, now.*” 

“Yes, but not too old to dominate a hundred rivals. 
He’s a powerful man, Nellie — he’s crooked, but on a big 
scale. I’m afraid of him. He’ll get us yet, Nellie. Some 
little word, or look, or slip, and we’ll give ourselves away. 
Then he’ll see it all at a glance, and he’ll come down on 
us like a thousand of bricks.” 

“Like a thousand of cream puffs,” Nellie sniffed, irri- 
tated at being interrupted in her upward thoughts. 

But Memling fretted on: “He’s soft with you, Nel- 
lie, because you’re pretty, and he’s lost his head over you ; 
but, once he learns how you’ve tricked him, he’ll crush you 
like a June bug. He’s a merciless fighter. He gives no 
quarter in Wall Street. He’s pursued big rivals to abso- 
lute bankruptcy, and I’ve heard that a widow’s tears only 
make him a little meaner.” 

Nellie unclasped her hands in despair. “Gee, I can’t 
slip a prayer in edgewise. Don’t get stage fright now, 
Doik, for moicy’s sake. We got the grandest little 
chance that ever came our way; don’t play the quitter 
now.” 


173 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

She lifted her eyes to him, and they were full of 
bravery. He took courage from them, but even as he 
stared into them, he saw her glance across the room, and 
blench with sudden terror. She clutched his arm, and 
gasped : 

“For Gawd’s sake!” 

“What’s up now, Nellie 

“We gotta get out of here this minute.” 

“What do you see — that watchman, Beals 

“Woise than that. Look round, careful, and pipe 
what’s sitting at a table up against a champagne 
bucket.” 

Memling turned cautiously, and made out a figure 
that was entrancing the tittering waiters. It was as if a 
tramp had stolen the clothes of a rich bather, put them 
on, regardless of misfit, found money in the pockets, and 
resolved to squander it in one magnificent outing. Mem- 
ling recognized him at a glance as one of the members 
of the gang with whose dubious assistance he had carried 
out the robbery of the Van Veen estate. 

He was lolling in a ridiculous imitation of majesty, 
over an array of dishes that would have taxed the ca- 
pacity of a Roman emperor. 

In one hand he gripped, at the same time, a wavering 
champagne glass and a cigar of that huge size curiously 
called a “fairy tale,” though “cat-tail” would be more 
appropriate. 

“It’s only Gold-tooth Lesher,” Memling smiled to 
Nellie. But she was in a panic. 

“Yes, but he’s drunk, and dressed up. If he sees us 
he’ll come over; and if he opens his mouth, he’ll jam both 
feet in it. We gotta fade, and fade quick.” 


174 


""Gold-tooth'^ Lesher Again 


CHAPTER XXXI 

“GOLD-TOOTH” LESHER AGAIN 

M EMLING had learned to respect Nellie’s intuition 
of danger, and he realized the menace of their 
toothless and brainless old crony. But he realized, also, 
the other horn of the dilemma. 

“We can’t run away and leave Van Veen in the tele- 
phone booth,” he said. But Nellie would not delay. 

“We’ll wait for him outside. Slip the waiter his 
money, and tell him to tell the old man we’re on the 
steps.” 

Memling began to partake of Nellie’s panic. He 
beckoned the waiter, shoved him a bill at least twice too 
large, told him to keep the change, and apprise Mr. Van 
Veen where his friends were waiting for him. 

As they scurried to the door. Van Veen appeared, 
saw them, and, to Nellie’s delight, hastened after them, 
looking interrogation points. 

“I got a little faint in there,” Nellie explained. 
Memling had already signaled the motor car, which 
was fortunately at hand, and dashed up without delay. 
Nellie and Memling leaped in, and Van Veen followed, 
calling to the chauffeur: 

“The Waldorf.” 

Just at that moment Nellie saw Gold-tooth Lesher at 
the head of the stairs. He had descried them, and fol- 
lowed in haste. His mouth was too full for utterance, 
but he waved a fork at her, and then took his napkin 
from under his chin to shake it as a signal of distress. 

175 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

But Van Veen did not see him, and Nellie did not men- 
tion him, except to heaven, in a prayer of thanks. 

When the whizzing car reached the Waldorf, Mem- 
ling registered his own name and Mrs. John Vaughan’s. 
He asked for a drawing-room suite for Mrs. Vaughan. 
Seeing the great Van Veen in her company, the room 
clerk gave them an apartment ordinarily occupied by vis- 
iting princes and Chinese wearers of the peacock feather. 

As they had no baggage to bestow, they were soon 
gathered about a table, discussing what would be a 
proper sum to keep Memling in artistic comfort, to trace 
and repurchase his marbles, or other blocks of appro- 
priate size; to pay off the debts that had been gathering 
moss and interest in Italy^ and to carry his work to com- 
pletion. 

Van Veen was plainly trying to make an impression 
on Nellie. Once before, he had so lost his head that he 
had proposed marriage to her. Judging that his best 
play was to show a certain flippancy with large amounts 
of money, the old satyr promised himself a financial in- 
discretion. 

When, then, Memling would murmur: “My living 
expenses in Italy would be, say — well, I could manage on 
two hundred a month,” Van Veen would say: 

“Call it three hundred,” and look at Nellie to see if 
he had scored. 

When Memling would protest: 

“But I have no right to trespass on your generosity,” 
Van Veen would giggle: 

“Oh, I’ll make it up by shaving the next dividend 
down that much,” or “When I’m a financier, I’m a finan- 
cier; when I’m playing Miecenas, I can’t afford to 
haggle. 


176 


""Gold-tooth"" Lesher Again 

And then he would look at Nellie, and cold chills 
would run up and down her back, while Memling turned 
green with a jealous desire to throw the old he-goat 
down the air shaft. 

But they were restrained by the feeling that even this 
brief humiliation was better than the long suffering of a 
penitentiary repentance, and they kept silent. Memling 
could not entirely resist the heavenly urge of a tempta- 
tion to believe that perhaps, after all, their uncanny luck 
would hold out till he had actually retrieved his beloved 
statuary and had once more tasted the rapture of beating 
off the marble husks from the beautiful forms he. had 
visioned. 

And then there was a knock on the door, a loathsome 
rat-tat-tat, as from mushy knuckles, and before they 
could say “Come in,” or “Stay out,” the door was opened 
stealthily, in a sneak-thievish way, and Gold-tooth 
Lesher’s mug leered through the crack, the light flashing 
back from that lone and gilded incisor which gave him 
his nickname and his personal dialect. 

When Nellie saw Gold-tooth’s ugly head surveying 
the scene, like Mephistopheles in Gretchen*s garden, her 
womanly intuition instantly advised her to rush to the 
door, take the intruder by the throat, shove him into the 
hall, and there scare him away, or throttle him to death. 
The alternative could have been decided in the hall, and 
she could have found some explanation to appease Van 
Veen’s curiosity. 

But her reason told her to pause and think it over. 
When a woman stops to think, she is lost. She ceases 
to be the inspired sex, and becomes an inferior imita- 
tion of the plodding male. 


177 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


CHAPTER XXXII 

THE BOMB EXPLODES 

N ellie never forgave herself for wasting that pre- 
cious moment in cogitation. She glanced at Mem^ 
ling, and he had turned to wood ; he had no more initia- 
tive than a cigar Indian wearing a smile made with a 
chisel. 

Before she could speak, the stage was Gold-tooth’s. 
With all the aristocracy of intention unwonted cham- 
pagne could give a man of the training and nature of a 
tramp, he stalked in, waved a wobbly hand, and pro- 
ceeded to speak in his own peculiar way, his usual loose- 
ness of tongue being further liquefied by his potations : 

“Greetingsh, kind friensh! I sheen youse two up at 
the Claremont reshtaurant, and I tried to pash the time 
of day sochable ; but youse wash making a break for your 
benzshine ambulansh, and youse gimme the shlip. But 
when this old geezher here” — he rested his hand and his 
unstable weight on the shoulder of the astounded Van 
Veen — “when I heard him shing out to the sh'ofFeer, ‘The 
Waldorf,’ I follered you ash fasht as possible on the 
shubway. 

“The gazhabo at the deshk downstairs didn’t want to 
lemme up, but I told him I was Mr. Memling’sh coash- 
man, and he gimme thish number. . I told him he needn’t 
telephone, as youse wash exspectin’ me. Purty good, 
ain’t I ^ 

“I never had no difficulty gettin’ into a housh I shet 
my heart on, day or night, and I washn’t goin’ to let any 

178 


The Bomb Explodes 

narrow-shested hotel shambermaid keep me out. Sho 
here I am, and zhusht in time. Whash the good word.? 
Whash new zhob you’re framin’ up? Who ish thish old 
party? I ain’t sheen him before, have I?” 

Van Veen’s first instinct was a mechanical reaction. 
He was rather finicky in his attire, and he sat brushing 
off the place where Gold-tooth’s unmanicured hand had 
rested. Otherwise he was as stupefied as Memling and 
Nellie. 

The fatalism that is at once the support and the de- 
spair of a thief, had nullified their faculties. Nellie felt 
the suffocation of doom in the air, and she simply 
grinned helplessly, and muttered to Memling: 

“This seems to be our busy day.” 

Otherwise, Gold-tooth’s appearance was received with 
complete silence. He had expected some applause, at 
least, and he broke out with alcoholic querulousness : 

“Whyn’t you shay shomeshing? Whyn’t you tell me 
what you shink of my glad raghsh? Are you as zheal- 
oush ash all that? Nifty, ain’t they? When you 
shlipped me my share of the shwag, I shaid to myself: 
‘Whash use tryin’ 46 shave money ? I better have one 
grand shweetrday of it; and shpend it before shome 
other shief* 'shwipes it off me.’ So I buysh me a com- 
plete outfit from my shkin out. Whatta you shink of 
my shilk hat — and my shwaller tail coat — and my yel- 
low shoes? Look at my shocks!” He put out a foot like 
a Gladstone bag. “I alwaysh wanted a pair of green 
shocks — never had a pair till to-day. Oh, I’m one hot 
dressher, all right, .all right. 

“And not o»ly ‘ zhat, but” — he dropped his voice to 
an impressiyefV whisper — “my under clozhe — you’d ought 
to see nfy' underclozhe — shilk — honestogawd ! If I 

179 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

wazh to take off my outshide ragsh, I’d look like one of 
them handsome guysh in the advertishements — short 
sleeves, and the — the resht of ’em comes only to my 
kneesh. 

“Hully zhee, I feel shwell ! Thish Waldorf gang ain’t 
got anyshing on me. Shay, whyn’t you interdoosh me 
to our little friend here.? He looksh like a A-1 confi- 
densh operator. Whash his little game.?” 

If either Memling or Nellie could have moved just 
then, murder would have been the least of the things they 
would have done to their bibulous ex-confederate. But 
their condition was perfectly diagnosticated in Gold- 
tooth’s next sally : 

“Shay, what ailsh youse guysh.? Are you osshified.?” 

Van Veen alone could speak. He said: 

“Dear me, who is this person .?” 

Gold-tooth rounded on him angrily: “Pershon.? 
Whozh a pershon.? I’m no more of a pershon zan you 
are, old Mishter Greengoodsh.” 

Van Veen ignored him. “Who is he, I say.?” he 
stormed at Nellie. 

Nellie managed to stammer: “Don’t mind him, he’s 
not responsible; he’s been drinking.” 

“Can’t I see that.?” Van Veen shrieked. “But who 
is he.? Get him out, or I shall have to leave.” 

Gold-tooth tried to speak, but Nellie rose with tardy 
resolution, and elbowed him into a chair, while she tried 
to explain: 

“He’s a distant relatuff of my poor husband’s. He’s 
never been quite right.” 

Gold-tooth essayed to rise and protest, but she held 
him fast in his chair, and silenced him by the simple 
method of pressing her fist against his mouth. 

180 


The Bomb Explodes 


“You can tell by the look of him that he’s not all 
there. He’s not quite bad enough to keep in an asylum, 
but he’s a terrible coise — curse to his family.” 

Van Veen was not appeased; he kept brushing his 
shoulder, as if the man’s imbecility might be contagious. 
Memling made a pitiful effort to support Nellie in her 
distress. 

“You can see by the conformation of that skull that 

the poor fellow is congenitally — congenitally ” the 

big words stuck in Memling’s throat, but Gold-tooth al- 
most swallowed Nellie’s hand as his mouth opened to its 
full capacity in a bellow of indignant protest. 

“You let my shkull alone! My shkull’s all right.” 
He rose from the chair, shoved Nellie aside, and turned 
to Van Veen to defend his impugned honor: “Don’t 
you lisshen at ’em. They’re zhealous of me — thash what I 
My shkull wash good enough for ’em to lean on when 
they wanted to pull off that shinemashograph shtunt, up 
in Ucayga. I told Memling myshelf about how I 
knowed all about moving pickshers, and when he wanted 
to clean out old Van Veensh eshtate, up in Ucayga, didn’t 
he ashk me to go along and help him? Didn’t he? And 
zhen didn’t he try to hold out on me? He did. 

“Don’t you believe what he tellsh you about my 
shkull; itsh a mighty good shkull, and many a cop has 
broke his locusht on it, and not made a dent. If you got 
any zhob you want to pull off, you call on me — zash all. 
My name’s Lesher. Gold-toosh, the boys call me. I 
don’t know your name, bo, but lemme warn you to be 
careful wish them two guysh. They’ll uzhe you, and 
then they’ll abuzhe you. They’re a gang of sheap 
shkatesh, and I don’t care who knowsh it.” 

He clapped his “shilk” hat on his angry “shkull,” 

181 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

gave the crown a dilapidating slap, and wavered from 
the room. Nobody tried to stop him. 


CHAPTER XXXIII 

THROUGH THE VACUUM CLEANER 

W HEN the door had ceased to quiver from the 
vicious slam that Gold-tooth gave it, as a sort of 
farewell damn, the room was possessed by utter silence. 

Memling was too deeply nauseated with life in gen- 
eral, and his own shame in particular, to care what hap- 
pened. Nellie’s soul was in a typhoon of dismay. Van 
Veen alone was unmoved. He sat there, a calm little giant, 
as he had sat through many a panic, when bulls and bears 
were stampeding and running amuck through fortunes. 

Just a moment Van Veen sat motionless, then he 
reached out for the telephone that stood on a table, 
brought it close, and said, in a perfectly quiet, almost 
mincing tone: 

“This is Mr. Roger Van Veen. Understand.? A man 
is coming down in the elevator. You will know him by his 
silk hat and yellow shoes. Ask the house detective to 
meet him and detain him. Make haste, and let me know. 
Understand.? Good!” Then he turned his little bottle- 
gray eyes on Memling and Nellie, and simply murmured: 
“Now.” 

They could have killed him at once, but the telephone 
was at his elbow — and they were not of that sort, or that 
mood. Memling sat in haughty disdain, too proudly 
meek to say a word. Nellie thought first of trying de- 
ception. A glance at the millionaire’s keenly intelligent 
182 


Through the Vacuum Cleaner 

face banished all hope of outtricking this old trickste' 
She thought she would brazen it out. Then she glance , 
at Memling, white as one of his own statues, and her 
love for him, her terror of the disaster that would en- 
gulf his genius, overwhelmed every other emotion. She 
said: 

“Mr. Van Veen, it looks like you had us where the hair 
is short. Our jig’s up. I don’t care what happens to me; 
it don’t matter. I was born a crook, and I grew up 
crooked; but Mr. Memling, here — you mustn’t do any- 
thing to hoit him. He’s had more’n his share. What I 
told you about the pediment group was all on the level. 
The grafters did him doit. They broke his heart on him. 
When he come back to America he hadn’t a cent. He’d 
gave all he had to the Dagos that woiked for him. He 
fell under the inflooence of a pickpocket who saved him 
from starving. And that’s on the level, too. He was 
going abroad to begin all over. Him and I was just say- 
ing how grand it would be to be honest. I’d ’a’ liked it^ 
too, but it don’t matter about me. If you got any heart 
in you, don’t send Mr. Memling up the river. Leave him 
go, and put it all on me. I’ll soive his time and my own, 
too, and. glad of the chance. Oh, you can’t, you can’t, 
before Gawd, you can’t make a convict out of a genius 
like him. Say you won’t.” 

She leaned forward, her hands outstretched appeal- 
ingly. Van Veen only smiled. She went to her knees, and 
hunched toward him for a last appeal. 

“You asked me to love you once, and I wouldn’t. You 
asked me to be your wife, and I wouldn’t. I will now. If 
you’ll let him off, you can have me, Mr. Van Veen, you 
can have me, and welcome ” 

“Stop !” Memling had leaped to his feet. 

183 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Then the telephone bell rang. Van Veen put the re- 
ceiver to his ear. 

“Hello. Yes, this is Mr. Van Veen. Oh, it’s Mr. 
O’Brien.'^ Yes. That’s good. Just detain him there. 
Don’t let him talk. I may want you up here — ^but not 
just now. Thanks, that’s good.” He hung up the re- 
ceiver, and turned back quietly. 

“You were saying, Mr. Memling.?” 

In the interval, Memling had found a moment for 
clear thought. He saw that Nellie’s whole future was as 
deeply involved as his own, as important as his own. For 
a rare interval of self-forgetfulness, her welfare became 
more important than his own. 

He gathered the terrified girl in his arms, lifted her 
to a chair, and advanced on Van Veen. Van Veen reached 
for the telephone. Memling paused, and smiled. 

“Don’t worry. I’ll not hurt you. You are a very 
clever man, Mr. Van Veen — too clever for me — ^but you 
lack imagination. That is my profession — or it used to 
be. I won’t stoop to apologize, or to beg for mercy. I 
won’t appeal to what you haven’t got. I wonder if you 
have a sense of humor.? I suppose not, or you’d never 
have succeeded as a financier.” 

“I don’t quite follow you,” said Van Veen, a trifle puz- 
zled. 

“I don’t think you do. I was just following out the 
consequences of your line of action. You have us en- 
tirely in your power. If I am arrested, I shall plead 
guilty. But where will that leave you.?” 

“Just where I was, Mr. Memling.” 

“Oh, no ; not at all. It will make you immortal.” 

“Immortal, Mr. Memling?” 

“Immortal, Mr. Van Veen. You will become the clas- 

184 


Through the Vacuum Cleaner 


sic example of the rich art collector. You will become a 
proverb, a common noun, a verb. In the future, when 
anyone wishes to refer to a millionaire who buys canvases 
by the yard, and statuary by the ton, and who hasn’t the 
faintest idea of what he has, people will call him a ‘van- 
veen,’ with twa very small v’s. When a millionaire picks 
up alleged old masters, whose names he can’t pronounce, 
taking the mere word of a critic, or a collector, people 
will say, ‘Aha, he has been rogervanveening again.’ 

“The newspapers will not find poor Nellie and me 
worth much space. I’ll be only a poor devil of a sculptor 
who failed to climb out of obscurity, and fell into Sing 
Sing with a thousand other unimportant fools. 

“But when Mr. Van Veen has a stomach ache. Wall 
Street takes pills. When Mr. Van Veen says that the 
country ought to be prosperous, even though it isn’t, and 
he is, it’s worth a column in every paper in the country. 
What won’t they say if it comes out in court that when 
a gang of thieves looted Mr. Van Veen’s estate, in 
Ucayga, two of the thieves, unable to get rid of the art 
works otherwise, sold them back to Mr. Van Veen him- 
self, and he didn’t know the difference? 

“It will turn the front pages into a comic supplement, 
Mr. Van Veen. You will be the national joke. You will 
be classic at once. The newspapers never willingly let 
such a joke die. When you die, they’ll put it on your 
tombstone: ‘Here lies Roger Van Veen, the innocent art 
collector, who couldn’t recollect his own collection.’ I 
wish I were as sure of undying fame as you are, Mr. Van 
Veen. Why, you’ll be embalmed in the vocabulary.” 

Roger Van Veen could see through a millstone when a 
hole was punched through it for him. He did not fancy 
putting this millstone about his neck. He was giving mil- 

185 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

lions away to charities and universities to insure his im- 
mortality. He would have forfeited a million dollars 
rather than fasten such immortality on his name as Mem- 
ling pictured for him. He felt very sick of the whole 
transaction. But he would not show the white feather; 
he temporized, and asked, with a sneer that masked his 
confusion : 

“Do you calmly propose to me that I should let you 
walk out of here, and go scot-free, with all the money I 
paid you.'^” 

If Memling had been built of millionaire stuff, he 
would have answered “Yes,” but he had no financial 
genius. He grasped at the hope implied in Van Veen’s 
words, and seized the shadow rather than the substance. 
He thought he would bribe the old skinflint. 

“Oh, as for the money, we’ll pay that back. All we 
ask is our liberty. Then we’ll swear to keep silent about 
selling you your own property.” 

The financier saw his power. He clutched it, and 
saved his own self-respect. 

“Very well. Give me back everything I paid you, and 
all you took from me, and I’ll call it square.” 

Memling answered: “We can only give you back our 
letters of credit and all the cash we have left. The rest 
is beyond recall.” 

An hour later, as Memling and Nellie were seated on 
a bench in Central Park, Mr. Van Veen’s automobile 
passed them. He did not bow. But the odor and the dust 
of his motor car enveloped them where they sat, paupers, 
with night coming on, and hunger beginning to empha- 
size their general emptiness. 

This was Nellie’s thought, too; for she sighed: 

186 


Hungry 

“I feel as if somebody had went through us with a 
vacuum cleaner.” 


CHAPTER XXXIV 
HUNGRY 

T hat gone feeling was doubly present at Dirk Mem- 
ling’s equator, for his money belt was as empty as 
his stomach. 

A few hours before he had been lunching a million- 
aire luxuriously at the Claremont. At that time his girdle 
had been so crowded as to hamper his appetite. And now 
both guest and wealth had taken wings, and his appetite 
raged unhampered. Now he sat doleful and forlorn on a 
park bench. Alongside moped Nellie Gaskell, his some- 
time model, and his companion in many a prosperous, 
many a preposterous time. This one afternoon had seen 
them at both extremes of affluence and poverty. 

“We got what we desoive,” Nellie brooded. “We otta 
known better than traipse around with a plutocrat. Those 
millionaires can sweat pennies out of a baby’s bank with- 
out opening it. A man like old Van Veen senses money 
through a stone wall. And money knows its master just 
like a dog does. When Van Veen sniffs a dollar, he just 
gives it the high sign and moimurs: ‘Get to me’ — and 
it gets.” 

The exquisite Memling was too profoundly depressed 
to wince at Nellie’s inelegancies of diction. 

“If anybody but Van Veen had taken it away from 
us,” he sighed, “it wouldn’t be so disgusting. But we 
were so proud of stealing his pictures. And when we sold 

187 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

them back to him for big money, we thought we were the 
greatest geniuses that ever lived. And now to have him 
take everything away from us! — why, it makes me feel 
like a mere amateur.” 

“You’re dead right,” moaned Nellie. “To be run 
over by our own come-on — it’s awful, abs’lutely awful. 
There’s sumpum inspiring about risking a sentence to the 
penitentiary; but to feel that we’ve oined a place in the 
Home for the Feeble-minded — it was coarse woik.” 

“And all our dreams of living honestly in the future, 
where are they.?” 

“On board the steamer we missed,” said Nellie. 

“Our dreams of honesty!” sighed Memling. “In the 
words of Villon, ‘Where are the snows of yesteryear.?’ ” 

“Vee-yon.?” said Nellie. “Is he the lad that wrote 
‘The Beautiful Snow’.?” 

“Not the same — ^he was a poet,” said Memling. “He 
was a thief, too, a worse thief than I’ve ever been, but a 
great artist. They had him in jail, and he came near 
swinging for a job that ended in a killing. But people 
forgive him aU that now. They love him for it. Pos- 
terity forgives anybody anything, if he will only create 
some beautiful work of art before he dies. I could have 
done something big in sculpture if I hadn’t been pre- 
vented. I’ll do it yet. I’ve got to, Nellie. If I can only 
finish one statue before I get locked up for life, they can 
say what they want to about the rest of my record. But 
I’ve got to finish a statue, Nellie.” 

“Oh, you’ll win out, never fear. Nothing can stop a 
foist-class genius like you are. The Old Nick himself 
couldn’t poivoit a talent like yours.” 

If she had opposed him or ridiculed him she might 
have braced him; but the soft word of agreement with 

188 


Hungry 

self-praise undermines it. So Memling, under the influ- 
ence of Nellie’s idolatry, collapsed: 

“Here I sit, talking big and doing nothing. Carving 
statues takes time, and money, and leisure. And the one 
great ambition that is gnawing me now is an ambition to 
carve a thick steak, classically draped with onions. That’s 
how much of a poet I am. I’m hungry.” 

“Me, too,” said Nellie. “My Little Mary thinks I’ve 
had all my teeth pulled. ‘A steak, a steak, my kingdom 
for a steak,’ as George Broadhoist says. But I can’t see 
how we’re going to get a red cent without nipping it.” 

“Don’t! don’t!” groaned Memling, all the gentleman 
in him protesting. “I can’t endure the thought of any 
more thievery.” 

“And I can’t endure much more of this foodless frolic, 
either,” said Nellie. “You sit still here and I’ll rustle 
round and see if I can’t swipe a pocketbook or a watch 
off somebody. The park is full of people saving car fare 
and calling it exercise.” 

“Don’t you dare!” growled Memling. “Do you think 
I’d permit you to soil your beautiful fingers with pocket 
picking 

“It’s awful nice of you, Doik, but if I don’t, I won’t 
soil my fingers with food, either. They’re kind of out of 
practice, and I run a swell chance of getting nabbed in 
the act, but I’ve gotta do it.” 

“No, no — anything but that.” 

She fixed on him a gaze of devotion. A mother could 
not have regarded a hungry child with more desperate 
compassion. A mother could not have longed more holily 
in any extreme endeavor. 

“It’s gotta be done, Doik. I can’t just sit here and 
listen to my appetite yell. And you — you’ll faint and 

189 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirh Memling 

roll off this bench if you don’t stow sumpum solid. You 
wait here — or meet me somewheres — and I’ll make a raise 
somehow. It’s getting so dark, it will be easy.” 

“I’d rather die,” he said. “I’ve drifted pretty low, 
but not that low. I’ll not send the woman I love 

“Doik!” she groaned, with a stab of rapture at the 
word. She was more anhungered for a little love talk 
than for any other food. Her hand found his, and the 
policeman strolling by noted it. But he was a park po- 
liceman, and spooning was no luxury to him. He saun- 
tered past, never dreaming what a pair of conspirators 
he overlooked. 

As Memling grew hungrier, his principles grew 
fainter: 

“It’s bad enough to have to postpone honesty again 
indefinitely ; but if we must steal — and I suppose we must 
— in Heaven’s name let us steal like artists. I can’t bear 
the thought of a cheap Philistine crime — a platitudinous 
theft.” 

Nellie saw that he was weakening; she said: “What 
would you consider a crime that wasn’t a — a — one of 
those things you said.'^” 

“Well, if we could lift Cleopatra’s Needle and hold it 
for ransom till the city paid up and no questions asked, I 
wouldn’t mind that. Or if we could carry off the reser- 
voir and sell it to Chicago. Or if we could steal a pla- 
toon of policemen without using political pull — those 
things would be interesting. Their picturesqueness would 
atone for any slight immorality.” 

His eyes brightened at the throngs of motor cars 
bustling past like driftwood on the upper Niagara. “Or,” 
he said, “if we could steal a flock of taxicabs ; that would 
be worth while. By Jove, I wonder if we couldn’t.” 

190 


Hungry 


Nellie rebuked him coldly: “I’ve hoid of taxicabs 
robbing people, but I never hoid of anybody robbing a 
taxicab. I don’t believe it could be done.” 

“All the more reason for trying. The older I grow, 
Nellie, the more I am convinced that the only thing worth 
attempting is the impossible. Now, if we could ” 

But Nellie’s mind was obsessed with a more immediate 
“if.” 

“I wonder if we eat. Haven’t you got even the price 
of a plate of soup on you.'^ I’m so hungry I believe I 
could empty a dish of oatmeal.” 

“If I saw a dish of tripe I’d lift my hat and tell it 
how well it was looking. But old Van Veen took even the 
pocket dust.” 

“Couldn’t we get something charged somewheres? 
Pierre Bonpland would stake us to a meal, I’m sure.” 

“Yes, but we told him good-by, and — even if he 
trusted us, how could we get out alive.? We haven’t even 
a coin to tip the waiter with. I’d rather go hungry than 
face an untipped waiter. Besides, Nellie, food is only 
part of our problem. Where is a roof to shelter us ? The 
thought of a park bench all night is appalling, especially 
as the city, with true American hospitality, has put iron 
arms at just such intervals that one can neither lie under 
them nor over them.” 

“We’re soitainly up against it, Doik,” said Nellie. 
“Up against it.? Why, we’re ’way into it!” 


191 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


CHAPTER XXXV 

THE ONE SURE TALISMAN 

S O they sat, while a dejected twilight went about the 
sky, pulling down the curtains and setting out a 
few stingy candles to emphasize the dark. Nellie shiv- 
ered and coughed. She put her hand to her throat to rul> 
it warm. She gave a start and a gasp. Memling jumped. 

“Nellie! Nellie! What’s the matter.? Did a spider 
bite you 

“Spider nothing. I just struck a gold mine. Say! 
Doik, Pm a millionairess.” 

“Great heavens, the poor girl has gone mad!” 

“Mad nothing! Do you remember once we were talk- 
ing about superstitions and lucky pieces and charms, and 
you said you didn’t believe in such things.?” 

“I remember we had many disputes of that sort, yes. 
Why.?” 

“And you made me throw away that rabbit’s foot.?” 

“I probably did.” 

“And you said you only knew one kind of charm that 
would really ward off bad luck.?” 

“I don’t quite recall that.” 

“Well, you was feeling flush at the time, and you 
gave me one.” 

“Did I.? What was it.?” 

“You said it was an armlet or something against evil. 
And you says to me, ‘Nellie, there’s only one sure pre- 
ventive of the evil eye, only one charm that will ward off 
the woist danger in the woild.’ And you gave me one.” 

192 


The One Sure Talisman 


“Did I? Tell me! What was it?” 

“A hundred-dollar gold piece. You had a little chain 
made for it, and a locket with a piece of Uncle Sam’s 
best in it. I’ve worn it so long I forgot I had it. I won- 
der how Van Veen missed it. But here it is.” 

She unfastened the infallible phylactery and put it in 
his hand. He welcomed it with a cry of joy: “‘Saved!’ 
cried Clifford de Montmorency, as he swooned at the feet 
of Lady Vere de Vere.” 

Memling felt like a child when a light is brought into 
a bogey-infested nursery. “A hundred dollars !” he 
gasped. “I didn’t know there was so much gold in this 
country. Some people say that the United States coinages 
are not beautiful. But this is the most perfect example 
of the numismatic art.” 

“Numis — nothing,” said Nellie. “I wonder how much 
we could get on it at a pawnshop.” 

“About two dollars,” said Memling, from the fund 
of experience. “But why pawn it, when we can get full 
value for it by just having it changed?” 

“I hate to give it up; it’s a keepsake.” 

“Then let it keep us from starving. And I’ll get you 
another when I’m flush again. Of course, it would be 
more thrilling to pass this if it were counterfeit, but we 
mustn’t ask too much. And to think that I once had a 
hundred dollars to give away!” Then he remembered 
that he was gloating over something that did not belong 
to him. He pressed it back in Nellie’s hand and said, 
“Thank Heaven, you’re provided for, Nellie. I can shift 
for myself.” 

She stared at him, aghast. “Do you think I’d desoit 
you now.?” 

“Well, I could hardly allow you to support me.” 

193 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“You couldn’t, eh? Well, either you come along quiet 
and behave or I’ll scream, and accuse you of being a big- 
amist who left me to starve with my eight kids.” 

Memling knew that she was capable of anything in 
his behalf, and he was very, very hungry, so he said : “All 
right, anything for a quiet life.” 

“Where shall we eat — the Waldorf?” 

“Well, hardly — not after what happened there this 
afternoon.” 

“That’s so. Where else is there? The Plaza?” 

“Let’s try the Knickerbocker.” 

“Fine!” 

With only a hundred dollars between them and desti- 
tution, of course they had to spend it as quickly as pos- 
sible. Bo they resolved to do the thing in style. 

They waited till they saw a passing taxicab with the 
red flag of vacancy flying. Memling hailed it as if he 
owned Golconda, and helped Nellie in as if she were the 
Czarina of every one of the Russias. 


CHAPTER XXXVI 
THE TAXI-PIRATE 

O F aU the indignations human beings can feel, the 
most indignant is that of the thief against the 
parasitic thief who would rob him of his stolen goods. In 
spite of her air of grandeur, Nellie kept her eye on the 
taximeter. Before the car had gone the quarter of a 
mile, the little register dropped from fifty cents to sixty. 
Once out of the park, she could tell the distance by the 

194 


The Tawi-Pirate 

number of blocks. When the taxicab bad gone three 
blocks the recorder dropped again to the higher level of 
seventy cents. 

Nellie nudged Memling. 

“Look, Doik, they got a phony clock on this taxi- 
cheater.” 

“What do you expect ?” 

“But at this rate, by the time we get to the Knicker- 
bocker, we’ll owe this lad our hundred dollars and some- 
thing over. I’m going to stop him.” 

“Don’t make a scene.” 

“Make a scene? I’ll have his life, that’s all. I can’t 
abide the thought of being robbed.” 

She reached forward, lowered the front glass, and dug 
her nails into the chauffeur’s shoulder. He whirled round 
so quickly that the car ran up on the curb. 

“What’s the matter wit’ youse?” he growled, as he 
backed off. 

“Nothing’s the matter with us. But that meter of 
yours has got a hemorrhage.” 

“Ah, go wan ! It’s inspected regular.” 

“Yes, but who inspects it? You do, I suppose. And 
I suppose you take us for a bridal couple from Osawato- 
mie?” 

The taxi driver whirled round and leaned in trucu- 
lently. 

“If youse doubt my word, youse know what youse 
can do.” 

“Yes, wese can drive to the police station.” 

It was a magnificent bluff, for the very word “police” 
sent a shiver through Memling and Nellie. But it had a 
cooling effect also on the taxi driver. He attempted 
pathos : 


195 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“Ah, youse ain’t gonna git me in trouble, are youse? 
I can’t leave me wife and kids to starve.” 

“If you got kids,” said Nellie, with all the vigor of 
the repartee she had learned in her earlier environment, “it 
would be doin’ ’em a favor to leave ’em starve. You set 
your clock back and we’ll drop the subject.” 

“Ah, how can I set it back.'* It’s locked.” 

“Well, do you think we’re going to sit here and watch 
the dimes drop off that clock hke leaves off a tree.^” 

He pondered a minute, then he brightened. 

“Well, I’ll tell you what.” 

“What.?” 

“I’ll throw the flag up to ‘Vacant’ and take you the 
rest of the way for nothin’.” 

“We’re rung up as far as Williamsboig now,” said 
Nellie. “And we’d look nice — wouldn’t we — riding in a 
wagon marked ‘Vacant’.?” 

There was a moment’s silence, and the driver took off 
his cap for the homely purpose of scratching his thick 
head. Nellie glared, and murmured: 

“For gracious sake, look who’s here ! If it isn’t me old 
friend, Willie with the Wen!” 

The driver drew his cap on again with violence. 

“Nix on that,” he growled, looking anxiously at the 
staring passers-by. “I’ve reformed.” 

“Reformed! You used to be a second-story man, and 
now you run a taxi. You ain’t reformed; you’ve gone 
from bad to woise.” 

“And who are you, that you know so much.?” 

“Who am I.? Why, I’m the duchess of Boikley 
Square, and this is the dook.” 

The best that Wensome Willie could scare up in an- 
swer to this was : 


196 


The Tawi-Pirate 


“Ah, go wan !” 

He leaned farther in to stare through the dusk light. 
Nellie pushed him back with a curt : 

“Where you think you are? On somebody’s porch?” 

The motion brought her forward into the glow from 
a street lamp, and Willie grinned. 

“Well, I’ll be Hello, Nellie! Who’d ’a’ thought 

of Say j you’re all right. You had me goin’, though. 

I fought you was a lady detectuff. Well, well; welcome 
to our city. Who’s the guy you got in tow?” 

“Me husband,” said Nellie, using the most economical 
term. 

“Ah, go wan!” was Willie’s refrain. 

Memling was not enjoying the encounter of the two 
ancient friends. 

“If you don’t mind. I’ll get out and walk,” he said 
sternly. 

“Gimme me fare first,” said Willie, “and you can 
run.” 

Memling sank back. His entire available capital was 
Nellie’s gold piece. Willie felt that he commanded the 
situation : 

“Are youse bound for the Knickerbocker, on the level ? 
Or are you goin’ to go in on the level and go out by the 
subway ?” 

“We was intending to stop to dinner,” said Nellie, 
with majesty. 

“Where do youse go from there?” said Willie. “I’m 
turning this freight car in after this trip, and I’d like to 
have a good talk over old times. Where do youse hang 
out now?” 

This was a poser. Memling wanted to send the man 
about his business, but it occurred to Nellie that he might 

197 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

be of some vague use in their present situation. The gold 
piece would not last forever. 

“We’ve just struck town,” she said. “We’re not set- 
tled yet. Where would you advise.?” 

“I know a swell boarding house,” he said. “I garage 
there myself. You can get a whole floor there for the 
price of a hat check at the Knicker — and a good meal for 
what you’d tip the tray chauffeur. Come on over.” 

After some hesitation they agreed to this. 

“All right,” said Nellie. “After all, the Knicker is 
lighted up something fierce.” 

Willie spun his wheel and, turning round, tooled them 
northward, then down a side street, where he introduced 
them to a landlady who regarded them as suspiciously as 
they her. But she took them in. She even consented to 
serve dinner for three in Memling’s room. 

It was a poor dinner, but by the time it was spread 
Willie was ready to join them. 

Memling had warned Nellie to avoid gossip of her 
owm past, but the warning was unnecessary. Willie was 
zealous for talk. He led so silent a life on his pulpit that 
he was overjoyed to find an audience, and he was so 
garrulous of his evil deeds that Nellie finally com- 
mented : 

“It’s a good thing you don’t carry a meter on your 
jaw, Willie. You’d soon owe yourself more’n you’re 
woith.” 

Willie’s reminiscences led him finally into a discourse 
on the joys of the taxicab career. He had a sense of hu- 
mor that made a crooked life one long, sweet comedy. He 
gave a revelation of the inner workings of a dishonest 
garage that astonished even Nellie. 

“I used to envy the owners of automobiles, but I don’t 

198 


The Taxi-Pirate 

now. Seems as if you cheffures committed every crime on 
oith inside those garadges, except moider.” 

“They save that for outside,” said Memling. “It 
doesn’t mess up the garage so much.” 

Nellie was reminded of the park: “Mr. Mem — Doctor 
Boikley here was saying a while ago that he’d like to steal 
a flock of autos ; but I guess he’d lose money at that.” 

“That depends on how you work it,” said Willie. 

Memling, who had sat rather contemptuously glum, 
put in another cynical remark: 

“I always say that anybody can steal anything; the 
trouble is to dispose of it. Any fairly clever mind could 
devise some scheme for capturing a drove of cars, but 
what could he do with them if he had them.'^ I imagine it 
would be very hard to get them out of the State and sell 
them.” 

“Why take ’em out of the State.?” said Willie. 

“You couldn’t keep them here,” said Memling. “Any 
fool knows that the numbers are registered, and there 
must be secret factory numbers on the engines in various 
places.” 

“Yes, but ” 

“Besides, I have noticed that people who are addicted 
to motors can tell their make as far as they can smell 
them.” 

“Yes, but ” 

“And I fancy that the kidnapped motor would not 
run far before it would be recognized and — arrested.” 

Willie, finding a chance now to speak, summed up his 
comment in a shrug he had learned from a French chauf- 
feur : 

“You steal me the cars, and I’ll dispose of ’em, all 
right.” 


199 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“Do you mean it?” 

“Sure I mean it.” 

Then ensued a collaboration between a poetic mind 
and a practical mind full of technical lore. What Mem- 
ling did not know about garagery, Willie did. What Wil- 
lie could not imagine, Memling could. 

And so before midnight a scenario was mapped out. 
But it involved so much greater outlay of time than Nel- 
lie’s lucky gold piece could span, that Willie was com- 
pelled to take into the plot the manager of the garage 
from which he rented his car. 

The man, a Mr. Kirk, was induced to attend a con- 
ference at the boarding house. He came to scolf, but 
remained to pay. Memling, indeed, had worked up so 
plausible a campaign that Mr. Kirk consented to fund 
the enterprise. 

“We haven’t got a chance,” he said, “but it appeals to 
the sporting blood of an old racing chauffeur.” 

When it came to advancing his own cash, his sporting 
pulse suffered a distinct retardation; for, after all, since 
Memling’s whole plan was to steal somebody’s else money, 
what was to prevent him from beginning at home, and rob- 
bing his backer? 

Memling wanted to be very indignant at this asper- 
sion on his honor, but he was gagged by the realization 
that his honor was already pretty well immersed in asper- 
sion. So he swallowed the insult as one gulps a fishbone. 

Mr. Kirk called Memling “Doctor Berkley” — since 
that was the name Nellie had improvised for him. And he 
finally said: 

“Well, doc. I’ll stake you, but only on the install- 
ment plan. You’ve got to go to a good hotel, and I’ll 
slip you a little money every day, as you have to have it. 

200 


The Tcuvi-Pirate 


But where do you hail from, and what’s your busi- 
ness ?” 

“I own a marble quarry in Palatka, Tennessee, and 
I’m in New York to buy a good touring car and a strong 
truck.” 

“Oh, you are, are you.? Well, do you know what’s 
the first thing the sales managers will do when you hand 
them that.?” 

Nellie spoke up: “Why, Mr. Koik, the moment they 
lay Gjes on Doctor Boikley they’ll believe anything he 
says.” 

“Oh, they will, will they.? Excuse me while I laugh. 
Ha-ha! The first thing they’ll do will be to say: ‘Ex- 
cuse me. I’m wanted on the telephone!’ Then they’ll 
go into a private office and look up their little Business 
Man’s Bible.” 

“Their what.?” 

“Their Dun or Bradstreet. There they’ll find that 
there’s nobody of your name in Palatka, and they’ll ask 
you for cash in advance, before they send the order to 
the factory.” 

This was a poser. Memling’s elaborate scheme began 
to totter. He rescued it with an inspiration: 

“What if I should take the actual name of some actual 
quarrier in Palatka.?” 

“That’s not so worse. I’ll look up Palatka and find if 
there’s a quarry there.” 

“I know there’s a quarry there,” said Memling. “I’ve 
used Palatka marble myself.” 

“You have.?” exclaimed Kirk. “I thought you were a 
doctor .?” 

Memling’s sculptorship was a secret. It was about 
to escape. He recaptured it by a careless cynicism. 

mi 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“Who has more use for marble than a doctor?” 

“Oh, I see,” said Kirk. “I suppose the undertaker 
gives you a rake-off. Well, I’ll go consult my little com- 
mercial concordance, and get you a good name in good 
standing in Palatka. While I’m gone little Willie-off- 
the-car, here, can pump you full of technical language.” 


CHAPTER XXXVII 

THE MARBLE-MAN FROM PALATKA 

T he grass had been flourishing in Wall Street all sum- 
mer, and the only interest in the market was to see 
what new low records could be achieved. With the volume 
of sales growing regularly “smaller by degrees and beau- 
tifully less,” the automobile manufacturers were in a 
chastened mood. The best of them did not sneer or 
snicker even when he heard that Major Beauregard Ker- 
shaw, of Palatka, was in town just looking around. 

Memling had known many Southerners, and he could 
mimic the dialect well enough to satisfy a Northern ear. 
He trained his mustache and bleached it gray — ^and 
bleached his hair at the temples ; wore a flat-brimmed 
black hat, carried himself like an old rebel, and tried to 
remember to punctuate his sentences freely with “suh.” 

He had planned to call himself “Kunnel,” but Mem- 
ling always liked a touch of the unusual, so he reduced 
himself to a bare majority. But he learned to say “Ma- 
jah” with a fine sonority. The impersonation might never 
have satisfied Palatka, but it captured New York at 
sight. 

The first wareroom to be honored with his visit was 

202 


The Marble-man from Palatka 


the palatial garage of the Telemotor Company. Here, 
on a lake of hard wood, islanded with rugs of royal price, 
a few cars were distributed like anchored gondolas. Vene- 
tian law, however, compels gondolas to be of black, while 
these wheeled boudoirs were of every rainbow hue, enam- 
eled, bright-brassed, nickel-finished, patent-leathered. Be- 
neath them mirrors threw an upward light into their in- 
ner workings. 

On balconies or under them sat the gleaming desks of 
the salesmen, each of them surely a baron. 

The manager of the Telemotor Company was a Mr. 
Galkin. He received the distinguished elderly person with 
condescending grace. 

“Ah haven’t a kyard with me,” said Memling, “but 
Ah am Majah Beauregard Kershaw, of Palatka, suh.” 

“Ah, of Palatka !” said Mr. Galkin, beaming with sat- 
isfaction, as if all his life he had longed to meet some- 
body from Palatka, and here he was at last. “Sit down, 
major, won’t you.^” 

“Ah thank you, suh. Ah’ll be as brief as possible, 
and not take mo’ of you’ time than Ah can he’p. It’s 
right valuable. Ah reckon.” 

“Well, we are rather busy, but my time is yours, 
major. Have a cigar.” 

“Ah thank you, suh. We old waw bosses do feel a 
little mo’ comfortable with ouah teeth on a cheroot. 
Now, the puppose of mah visit is this: Daown thah in 
Palatka Ah own a mobble quarry, and Ah need an auto- 
mobile or tew.” 

“Ah, yes, of course. Excuse me, I’m wanted on the 
telephone.” 

Mr. Galkin vanished. Through a crack in the door 
Memling could see him consulting a huge flat volume — 
^03 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

doubtless the Business Man’s Bible. Mr. Galkin returned 
with even greater deference, having evidently found that 
B. Kershaw, of Palatka, rated high. 

“You were saying, major, that you want an automo- 
bile or two. What style do you prefer — touring car, 
limousine, roadster, runabout.^* We have them in all styles, 
and guarantee everything except the tires.” 

“Yes, suh, the style of kyar doesn’t matta so much as 
its ability to climb hills.” 

“Our cars could climb the Singer Building. We won 
the first prize at the Gladen contest, a silver cup at the 
Beymer contest, and — well, you can see our trophies in 
the case over there.” 

“Well, that’s good, for the grades in mah quarries 
are right smaht. The roads are rough, and — well, you 
know our Southe’n roads.” 

“They will be easy enough for the Telemotor.” 

“No doubt, suh. But would you submit to a test.?*” 

“Certainly, certainly. We welcome any test. We’ll 
give you a demonstration on the Fort George hill — or 
anywhere.” 

“That’s right nice of you. Now, Ah’ve noticed that 
in Westchester County thah’s a limestone quarry that 
looks something like mine. Ah was wonderin’ if you would 
give one of yo’ kyars a little whack at that for a 
test.?” 

“Nothing would please us more, major.” 

“That’s ve’y handsome of you, suh. And if thah 
should be two or three kyars of otha makes thah at the 
same time, would you object.?” 

“Not at all, major; not at all. We ask nothing bet- 
ter than to meet any or all of our competitors.” 

“I admiah to heah you say it, suh. As mah time up 

204 


The Marble-man from Palatka 

Nawth is ratha limited, I may ask you to send a kyar thah 
next Sunday. It will be mo’ quiet then.” 

“Delighted, major. And just to show you how fear- 
less we are of competition, we’ll have some reporters 
there ; it will make a good news item.” 

The major flushed a trifle at this, and coughed once 
or twice into his handkerchief. Then he explained: 

“Ah don’t wish to dictate turns, suh. But we gentle- 
men from the South don’t fancy newspaper notoriety. 
Besides” — ^he leaned forward and spoke confidentially, 
though nobody was within earshot — “besides. Ah don’t 
want mah rivals in Palatka to know that I’m going in for 
mota kyars till after I’ve gone and got them right thah 
on the spot. You understand.?” 

“Perfectly. I shall see that not a soul knows of this, 
and I’ll instruct our chauffeurs to say nothing. 

“That’s right obliging of you. I’ll telephone you 
pahticulahs latah.” 

“Thanks, major. And where are you stopping.?” 

“At the Hotel Knickabockah, suh.” 

“Ah, of course. And how many cars shall I send 
you?” 

“You might send a roadstah, a limousine, and one 
large truck. If the truck turns out well I might ordah 
a numbah of them.” 

“Excellent. Very good. Certainly. Have a fresh 
cigar, major.” 

“Thanks, Ah’ll finish this fust. Good mawning, suh.” 

“Good morning, major.” 

If this chapter were duplicated in a dozen carbon 
copies it would serve, with very slight amendments, for 
the major’s experience in each of the other warerooms 
he visited. 


S05 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


CHAPTER XXXVm 

THE GREAT HILL-CLIMBING TEST 

T he old quarry in the hills of upper Westchester was 
nearly abandoned. A few Italians were engaged 
in blasting out the remnants of the limestone mine. But 
their work was chiefly a dolce far quasi niente. They 
found an excuse for doing less than usual on the follow- 
ing Friday and Saturday. For on these days they were 
surprised to note a sudden congestion of automobiles 
about their deserted region. 

Cars came buzzing and zooning like a swarm of Gar- 
gantuan mosquitoes. They assailed the rough and wind- 
ing hill with fury. They were often stalled, and they 
often ran faster backward than upward. There was much 
spitting of sparks, trembling to the verge of explosion, 
much cranking up, backing, and starting forward. 

Surreptitiously the chauffeurs improved the worst 
blotches of road, removed the heaviest boulders, and filled 
level the deepest holes. Then they sped away, and the 
Italians returned to their pretense of labor. 

Sunday the hill was absolutely deserted, without even 
a watchman. The nearest neighbors may have seen a few 
pedestrians go by; but they accepted them as evidently 
picnickers, for they carried lunch baskets with them. 

In the afternoon there was another onset of automo- 
biles, flocking to the foot of the hill like enormous mi- 
crobes hurrying to a spot of infection. The congress of 
chauflPeurs exchanged chauffeurish repartee, ridiculed 
206 


The Great Hill-climbing Test 

each other’s machines, guyed each other’s old ideas or 
new ideas. Several of them amiably endeavored to disable 
the engines of others, sprinkling glass under their tires, 
or loosening bolts unbeknownst. On this account there 
were numerous fights. These served to pass the time, but 
the chief problem, the incessant cry, was : 

“Where is that major from Palatka?” 

It was nearly dusk when the major arrived on foot, 
profuse with apologies and perspiration. He asked many 
questions, and before he was ready to give the word, it 
was so dark that a further delay was required to light 
up the searchlights and side lights. 

There was as much chaos in arranging positions as 
in starting a yacht race, and there was infinite jockeying, 
colliding, sharp practice, and the usual sneakery of such 
a contest. 

Finally the major put up his hand, and said: 

“Gentlemen, Ah’m exceedingly sorry, but Ah’m afraid 
you-all will have to go up one at a time. We’ll give every 
kyar a five minutes’ start, and Ah’ll recawd the exact mo- 
ment each one leaves.” 

“Yes,” said one chauffeur, “but who’ll record the 
exact time each one gets there.?” 

“You’ll find a friend of mine in a little shanty at the 
top of the hill. As each man arrives, please go in and re- 
pote. And you’ll find a little something to eat — and per- 
haps a toothful of something to drink.” 

This last item was received with ovation. 

“Oh, you major!” 

A Telemotor limousine was the first to get away. The 
major held a stop watch in one hand and a notebook in 
the other. The Telemotor set out with a vim, and, flash- 
ing along the level, sped up the first acclivity with the in- 

^07 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

difference of a cockroach, and whirled round a curve out 
of sight. 

Five minutes later the big International Fifty thun- 
dered away. And so, one by one, fifteen machines 
mounted and vanished. 

The major seemed to be suffering with excitement, but 
who would not be.^^ It was like a combat of dragons, each 
chauffeur a Siegfried to some conquered but protesting 
Fafner. 

The last car to go was the pride of the Telemotor 
Company — a sort of flying hippopotamus of seventy horse 
power, with Mr. Galkin himself at the wheel. At his 
invitation the major swung aboard, and the car bucked 
the hill with a roar. 

The Seventy soared the steep like an aeroplane breast- 
ing the ether; it rounded the first sharp curve with superb 
ease. Here a sharper grade filled with rolling rubble con- 
fronted it, and its glorious speed abated. Its wings 
seemed to fall off, and it settled down to the bitter grind 
of biting its way aloft. 

The car trembled, and seemed to sweat blood. Smoke 
enveloped the charioteer, and every time Mr. Galkin set 
the clutch, the car emitted a snarl. 

Mr. Galkin was sweating, too. He fought his engine 
as a jockey spurs and flogs a spent jade along a home 
stretch. He was about to despair, when he saw ahead of 
him a purple steamer, miserably stalled. Its chauffeur 
looked up with a grimy face, and glared murderously 
when Mr. Galkin sang out : “Hello, Matzen, shall I drop 
you a towline?” 

Matzen howled back: “I bet I catch you before you 
get to the top and give you a bunt in the tail lights.” 

“Yes, you will!” Mr. Galkin laughed back, throwing 

208 


The Great Hill-climbing Test 

on a higher speed. The Telemotor seemed also to gain 
fresh strength from finding a hated rival in worse plight 
— or, perhaps, it was that the road was not so steep just 
there. 

In any case, it took aboard impetus enough to hunch 
over a heartbreaking hummock. Then there was a short 
down grade. They swooped this, and throbbed up the 
opposite rise, and around another curve. 

Here they almost cut off the feet of a mechanician 
supine under his car. 

Three cars in all they passed thus, and then, just as 
everything pointed to a glorious climax, just as the Ca- 
naan of the peak was about to be achieved, something 
went wrong somewhere, and the car stopped short, with 
a sough of despondency. 

Mr. Galkin was overboard in a jiffy. He called out: 
‘T’ll have a new sparking plug in in a few minutes.” But 
the major said: “Thanks, Mr. Galkin, for the lift. Ah 
reckon Ah’ll walk the rest of the way.” 

As a matter of fact, he ran, fearing, wondering what 
he should find above. The height was deathly still. Not 
a car honked, snored, or missed fire. 

Once he left the far-reaching glow of Mr. Galkin’s 
searchlight, it was pitch dark, too. He made the last 
grade puffing like another overworked motor. He held 
his left hand over his breast, and wondered if his own 
carburetor would hold out till he reached the top. Major 
Memling would never have won a hill-climbing contest on 
his own feet. 

But once at the height, he stumbled into a sort of con- 
stellation of parked automobiles, each with its searchlight 
like a comet sending a tail of dazzle into space. 

A struggle of some sort was going on at the door of a 

209 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

little sheet-iron shanty on which was dimly visible the 
legend 

“DYNAMITE !” 

The major hurried to the scene of battle, and was 
suddenly set upon by masked men, gagged before he 
could speak, tripped, trussed, and flung to the ground. 


CHAPTER XXXIX 
THE DYNAMITE SHED 

H e fought hard, but fought with shadows — shadows 
that giggled, and overpowered, and paid no heed. 
He was smothered with inhaling his own profanity. 

Then he was picked up like a meal sack and toted to 
the “Dynamite” shed. 

Just as his captors were swinging him back and forth 
to give him a good heave into the interior dark, he heard 
a voice. 

“Hully cheese, it’s the major! Well, of all the bone- 
heads, youse guys is the worst ossified! Talk about solid 
ivory! Leave him loose.” 

It was the voice of Willie with the Wen, and it sounded 
like Wagner’s most luscious strain to Memling’s ear. He 
was set on his feet, his bonds whipped off, and the gag 
removed. He wavered and would have fallen, but Willie 
supported him, and explained in a husky whisper : 

“Excuse these guys, old man. They ain’t seen you 
before. Everything’s went as smooth as silk up to now. 
We nabbed every one of them chaffies as he came up to re- 
port his time, and we’ve got ’em in there, stacked up as 

210 


The Dynamite Shed 


neat as cordwood. Go in and pipe ’em off. It will do 
your heart good.” 

The major stepped inside, and found an amazing 
array of well-bandaged chauffeurs of every make and 
lung-power, gagged, and bound, and spread out in wind- 
row. The sight was beautiful to him. A grinning indi- 
vidual stood over the array waving an electric flashlight 
here and there. Every pair of eyes glared like acetylene, 
but every gag imposed silence. 

The major smiled, and said in his mellowest of tones: 

“Gentlemen, Ah must apologize for this paht of the 
entertainment. It isn’t mah idea of Southe’n hospitality 
at all, but Ah’m in the hands of mah Nawthe’n friends. 
Accommodations are so limited in this neck of woods that 
we had to stow you-all in this shanty. We have left an 
abundance of cold water in the bucket thah, as I under- 
stand no chauffuh evva drinks anything that might upset 
his eye. We are leaving also a basket of sandwiches 
alongside the bucket. Just he’p yo’selves as soon as you 
are free. 

“We are regretfully compelled to lock the do’, lest 
thieves should break in and steal you-all. But Ah have 
no doubt that some of you will manage to get yo’ hands 
free befo’ long. You can then release the othas. Then, 
if you-all will join in singing some familiar hymn such 
as ‘We won’t go home until mawning,’ no doubt somebody 
v/ill heah you and come up to ask you to stop. 

“lu the meanwhile Ah must beg you not to strike any 
matches or to pound too hahd on the walls, for the place 
has been used for storing d^mamite. Any undue obstrep- 
erousness might result in getting you-all out of here in 
such small pieces that yo’ families would find difficulty in 
collecting enough for the funeral. With these few wuds, 

211 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Ah take mah leave of you, wishing you good night, and 
pleasant dreams.” 

Then the man with the flash stepped out, and the 
major withdrew. The sheet-iron door was closed gently, 
and the silent inmates heard the click of a padlock. 

After that they heard a great racket, as of many ma- 
chines being cranked up at once. Then they heard the 
diminishing tuff -tuff of one automobile after another. 

Amazement was so overwhelming an emotion in that 
crowded shanty, that wrath had hardly room for berth. 
But it soon sprang full armed from many a forehead, and 
anyone with power to see in the dark would have seen 
such a writhing and twisting as could only be rivaled in 
a basket of eels. 


CHAPTER XL 

BEN HUR IN A MOTOR RACE 

I N accordance with the best codes, the captain and the 
first mate of the enterprise saw all the rest of the life- 
boats safely away before they thought of making their 
escape. 

Wensome Willie had reserved the best and fastest car 
for the homeward journey of Memling and himself, but 
they waited till each of the others was manned by one of 
Mr. Kirk’s volunteers and sent humming down the back 
trail from the quarry, each under instructions as to just 
which of several roads he should take to New York and 
the garage. 

Mr. Kirk himself usurped the next to the last car. 
When he had vanished into the gloom, Willie snickered: 
“Hop aboard, doctor — er — major.” 

^12 


Ben Hur in a Motor Race 


The major stepped to his place, and Willie twirled 
the crank. Nothing happened. He twirled it again, 
cursing a little. 

Suddenly he paused, listened, stared. The major 
leaned out to look to the rearward. Up the hill came a 
long beam of light and a throbbing sound. After it 
mounted a huge shadow, from which arrived the cheery 
voice of Mr. Galkin: 

“Here I am, major. Take my time, will you.?” 

Willie bent to the crank once more. It responded, the 
engine began to chatter, the car to quiver. He bounded 
to the wheel, and the car slid down into the black dark, 
the searchlight boring a tunnel of radiance through gloom 
like a solid stone. 

“Hully cheese, but we gotta beat it!” said Willie. 
“That old guy will hear those chafRes yelling, they’ll tell 
him what’s up, and he’ll hotfoot after us like a streak of 
lightning. He’s got twice my power, too.” 

With the recklessness that would appall even a chauf- 
feur, Willie plunged headlong into the uncertainties for- 
ward. Narrow escapes were commonplace. Yawning 
holes in the road, hairpin curves, breath-taking drops — 
he took them all as if they were the level sands of a 
Florida racing beach. 

Memling kept sentry watch to the rear, glaring into 
the sea of ink that closed in on the car like swirling smoke. 
But he saw no pursuing eyes of light. 

It was Willie that gave the first alarm. Their road 
curved so upon itself that, looking up, he descried some- 
thing like a toy automobile cleaving the dark in the 
distance. 

“Here he comes. See him scoot! We gotta douse 
them tail lamps of ours.” 


213 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

He stopped short, with a spine-cracking abruptness, 
scuttled out, busied himself in the rear, and, returning, 
set the car off again with a sickening leap. 

For miles they sped, breaking all speed laws, risking a 
thousand deaths. After a time Memling made out in the 
distance backward, a faint puncture of the black. It 
grew to two small eyes. 

With dread fascination Memling watched them grow, 
till finally the pursuing beams overtook and passed them, 
and illuminated even their own path. 

Willie’s brain had been chugging as hard as his own 
engine. He said: 

“He’s coming alongside. Don’t let him sneak a look 
at you. Oh, if he’d only get a blowout ! And if we only 
wouldn’t.” 

Now the noise of the pursuer overtook them. Soon 
they heard the voice of Mr. Galkin, no longer gentle and 
salesmanlike : 

“Stop, you thieves! Stop, I say, you pirates! I’ve 
got you !” 

Memling was in a cold sweat of terror. He saw him- 
self already in a cell. But Willie was still murmuring 
counsel. 

“Don’t lose your nerve, doc,” he said. “We got one 
last joker up our sleeve. Get ready to jump when I say 
the word. And pray hard.” 

The pursuer now rolled alongside, and, not daring to 
take his eyes off the reeling road, yelled threats and 
animadversions out of the side of his mouth: 

“You come with me. I’ve got a gun here, and I’ll 
shoot in a minute.” 

Willie answered never a word. He kept his gaze on 
what news the twin searchlight brought him of the imme- 
214 



“ ‘You come with me. IVe got a gun here’ ” 




The Wholesale Automohurglary 

diate path opening in front at cinematographic speed. 
But Galkin easily kept their pace. At last Willie mut- 
tered to Memling: 

‘‘Swing off on the footboard and give me a chance.” 

Memling groped out and clung to the hand grip. He 
stared ahead, imagining the worst. Suddenly a little 
plank bridge over a culvert leaped into view. 

Willie rose at once, and sidled out of his seat, con- 
trolling the wheel with his right hand. As the two ma- 
chines swept down upon the bridge, he gave the wheel 
a sharp tug. The car turned its nose into the flank 
of Mr. Galkin’s car, and, locking wheels with it, rammed 
it aside and carried it crashing over the edge of the bridge. 

Memling needed no word to jump. He tried to re- 
member the best way to strike the ground. He struck it 
every which way. 

He had a sense of hurtling through the solid earth 
along with some other catapulted missile. That was 
Willie. 


CHAPTER XLI 

THE WHOLESALE AUTOMOB URGLARY 

B y some of those miracles which preserve the race of 
automobilists from wholesale extinction, neither of 
them was killed. And neither was Mr. Galkin, though he 
thought he was, when he first woke up in the mud to find 
two cars upside down on top of him and explosions of 
every sort taking place in all directions. 

By the time he had crawled out of the wreckage, a 
ragbag for costume and a negro for color, Willie and 
Memling were limping down the road as fast as their 

215 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

bruises permitted, and Willie was already cheerful enough 
to laugh: 

‘‘We look like two Grand Army vets runnin’ a rheuma- 
tism race.” 

“But how do we ever get to New York.?” Memling 
groaned. 

“I don’t know, but we’ve got to make it somehow.” 

They came to a short hill now, and it was like another 
Matterhorn to Memling, whose whole machinery was on 
strike. Willie paused at the top of the slope and pointed 
down the road. 

Two cars were drawn up in the side grass. Men were 
tinkering with one of them. 

“That’s Kirk’s car, and I guess it’s Sweeny’s that on 
the blitz. Hurry up and they’ll give us a lift.” 

The two aching victims hobbled their best. As they 
approached, Willie’s first guess was confirmed. Kirk and 
another man had been unable to resist the temptation to 
race. And the other car had skidded into a stone wall. 

Mr. Kirk had stopped and backed up to offer his aid. 
When Willie explained his own pedestrian arrival, Kirk 
roared with anger: 

“Do you mean to say that you dumped an Interna- 
tional Fifty into a ditch and made junk out of it? Why, 
that car was worth five thousand dollars easy in my 
garage.” 

“In your garage, yes,” Willie retorted, “but I 
wouldn’t be worth five thousand cents in jail. I assassi- 
nated a Telemotor Seventy with that International Fifty. 
And, what’s more, you’d better leave this busted Thirty 
here and get into town before somebody else catches us.” 

“And leave another four thousand dollars plastered 
along this wall !” growled Kirk. “Not on your life !” 

216 


The Wholesale Automoburglary 

‘‘Oh, very well,” said Willie. “Penny wise and pound 
foolish. First thing you know Galkin or somebody will 
come along and spot some of us guys and follow us right 
to your stable, or telephone the cops to meet us there. 
Then the whole jig is up.” 

But still Kirk tried to doctor the wounded car into 
activity. He might have been there yet if the infuriated 
Galkin had not crawled and stumbled to the top of the 
hill, glared down at the scene, and indiscreetly shouted 
one more bloodcurdling threat. He was only a battered 
wreck, but to the conspirators he was like Polyphemus 
howling from a cliff. 

At the chilling sound of this cry out of the night, 
Kirk made no further delay. He darted to the wheel 
of the car he had stolen, and Memling, Willie, and the 
other chauffeur had hardly time to leap aboard before 
Kirk was off like the wind, leaving the four-thousand-dol- 
lar car to its fate. 

A long, dark scutter through the everlasting country 
into the outskirts of the town, under the elevated railroad 
tracks, through the almost empty midnight streets 
brought them at last to Kirk’s garage. 

Fifteen cars had started to climb the hill. Three had 
failed to make the top. Their owners cursed their luck 
till the next day, when they blessed misfortune for its 
favor. Three cars had been disabled on the home run. 
The rest made the haven in safety, coming in one at a 
time along different paths. 

The people of that street were too dismally accus- 
tomed to the clamor of automobiles turning into that 
garage after all manner of joy rides, to notice anything 
unusual in the arrival of nine cars, and their disappear- 
ance through the big door. 

217 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


Once inside, they were run, one after another, aboard 
the huge elevator and hoisted in turn to the repair de- 
partment on the third floor, where they were at once dis- 
mantled and dissected with furious enthusiasm by a crew 
of practical mechanicians. Every identifying number 
was destroyed, every trace disguised. 

In a few hours the nine disconsolate owners themselves 
might have wandered into that loft and never suspected 
that their property was all about them in dismembered 
fragments. 

Memling could not assist at this clinic, so he washed 
his wounds and borrowed a cap and a long automobile 
coat to cover his own rags. He reached his boarding 
house without attracting attention. 

There Nellie awaited him in feverish anxiety. She 
gave him comfort, applause, and idolatry. They sat up 
to all hours talking of what they should do with all the 
wealth they had earned — and had only to collect. 

The next day Memling was so thronged with pains 
that he could hardly stir. Besides, he was afraid to ven- 
ture forth with his bleached hair and mustache. Nellie 
promised to fetch him a lotion warranted to restore hair 
to its natural color for repentant experimenters. 

There was no need to destroy Major Kershaw’s felt 
hat and frock coat. The hat was on the road intact and 
the tails of the frock coat were also there, interesting ex- 
hibits to the detectives, but unpromising as clues. 

Meanwhile, Nellie resolved to visit Mr. Kirk in per- 
son and collect Memling’s share of the spoil. 

She found Mr. Kirk in a next-day mood. The morn- 
ing papers had said nothing of the wholesale automo- 
burglary which was committed at an unseasonable hour 
for them. But all the evening papers had “six-o’clock 

gl8 


The Wholesale Automoburglary 

extras” out before noon, headlining the astounding fel- 
ony. All of them announced that the detectives had found 
innumerable clues. 

Nellie told Mr. Kirk that they always said that, and 
that it was rarely true. But Mr. Kirk was in a blue funk. 
This was the first crime he had ever committed outside 
the regular line of his garage, and he was so terrified that 
he sweat ice water. 

When Nellie delicately alluded to her willingness to re- 
lieve him of “Doctor Boikley’s” portion of the swag, he 
turned on her with a malevolent leer : 

“Money, eh? He wants money, eh? For what? For 
getting me into this mess? Well, of all the nerve! No 
wonder your friend Doctor Berkley didn’t come for it 
himself.” 

“I made him stay home, Mr. Koik, because he was 
wounded something awful in your soivice. The whole 
scheme was his.” 

“Yes, the scheme was his. But I backed it, didn’t I? 
I put up the cash to keep him at a swell hotel. I fur- 
nished the men to do the job, and me and my men brought 
the cars back — and him, too. He couldn’t have steered 
a baby carriage home.” 

“Well, as for that,” said Nellie, in her most withering 
manner, “he wasn’t asking for a job as a cheffure. He’s 
not come down to that yet. And if it’s his fare you want 
to collect for the ride, you can deduct that from his 
money, and I don’t think he’d kick.” 

“You don’t think he would, eh? And how much is 
his share, do you think?” 

“Well, I can’t tell exactly. He was to have half of 
all he got for you. He got you nine foist-class auto- 
mobes. At an average of four thousand dollars per that 

219 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

would be — nine times four is forty- two, and half of that 
is twenty-five. But you know best what it is woith.” 

“I guess I do know best. And if I give him this hun- 
dred-dollar bill, he’s blamed lucky to get it.” 

Nellie made a desperate gulp for air. 

“A hundred dollars! A hu — hu Have you got 

the face to stand there and offer him a hundred dollars 
when twenty-five thousand is cornin’ to him.? Have you.? 
I ask you, have you.?” 

‘‘I have. We got the cars here, small thanks to your 
friend. I paid all the expenses. I’ve got to give every 
one of my men a big wad or there’ll be a howl from that 
direction. I’ve taken those cars apart. I’ve got to sell 
the parts as the chance comes — a pair of wheels here — 
an engine there — a top in another place — a torpedo body 
some place else. I may be a year working all those off.” 

“But that’s your business. You got ’em for nothing. 
You sell ’em for a heap. The agreement was that you 
should give him half the value of the cars.” 

“What if it was.? What’s an agreement with a thief.? 
What you going to do about it, anyway.? Tell the po- 
lice? I guess not. You better take this yellowback and 
vanish or I won’t give you anything at all. 

Nellie sat like a statue of meditation. The infamy 
of the man nauseated her. It undermined her last faith 
in human honesty. 


The Ready Anonymous Letter Writer 


CHAPTER XLII 

THE READY ANONYMOUS LETTER WRITER 

A lmost automatically she reached out, took the 
crisp new bill, shoved it into her purse, and groped 
her way from the building as if it were midnight. She 
wanted to cry, but she was too deeply grieved. She 
wanted to go to Memling and tell him what a blackguard 
he had enriched, but she couldn’t face him with such heart- 
breaking news just yet. 

She dropped on a bench in the park and sat smothered 
with despair. Suddeijly she shivered with an idea, laughed 
aloud, hastened to a stationery store, bought a pad and 
pencil, returned to the park, wrote furiously for a while, 
with as much scratching out and rewriting as a real au- 
thorette. 

Then she made haste to the Kirk garage again. She 
met Mr. Kirk just setting forth in an automobile — one of 
his really own. His success in browbeating Nellie out of 
Memling’ s money had dispelled his gloom. He was so 
radiant that he beamed on Nellie and lifted his hat with 
the profound homage one pays to the hopelessly weak. 

She motioned him back to his office with an insistence 
that he obeyed wonderingly. He dismounted and fol- 
lowed her in, as if he were her guest. She seated herself 
with authority, and said: 

“Mr. Koik, I been doing a little think, and I thought 
I ought to tell you about it. You’ve got such nice ideas 
of what one partner owes to another that I don’t want 
to do anything you might not like. I was wondering if 

221 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

you would think it would be unladylike for me to send 
a little letter to Mr. Galkin and the other eight gempmen 
whose cars you got up in your hayloft.” 

“I don’t understand,” said Kirk. “Why should you 
send a letter to these owners.? They don’t know you.” 

“Oh, I’d send it anonymous,” said Nellie. “But read 
it foist, and see what you think would happen if I sent it.” 

She handed him a page from her tablet, and he read: 

Dear Sir: Last night one of your ottomobiles was stole 
by force from your cheffure. You may be interrested to know 
where it is. If you was to look in the third-story loft of Mr. 
Homer Kirk’s garadge, you would find it. It may be carved 
up some. But it’s all there. Mr. Kirk was in on the whole 
game, and he expects to sell your car on the instalment plan 
as fast as he can work off the pieces. Modesty forbids me 
to sign my name, but you’re entirely welcome. Don’t mention 
it. Yours respectably, 

A Well-wisher. 

Kirk read the letter, read it twice, glared at Nellie 
wrathfully, glared at her again with curiosity. 

Nellie looked up at him with the wide eyes of guileless 
innocence, and murmured timidly: 

“Is the grammar all right.? If you like that model, 
I can write off nine copies of it in no time.” 

Kirk saw the situation in its entirety now. He waited 
no longer — he simply threw up his hands and said: 

“You win. How much.?” 

“Why, Mr. Koik!” cried Nellie. “Don’t you like my 
little letter.? Don’t you want me to send it? Or was you 
afraid I was going to ask you to pay the postage.?” 

“How much.?” Kirk roared, like a netted tiger. 

“Well, you’ve already paid us a hundred dollars on 


The Ready Anonymous Letter Writer 

account. If I was to moimur twenty-four thousand nine 
hundred, what would you say.?” 

“I’d say, take the garage,” said Kirk. 

“All right,” said Nellie. “I guess we could run it 
about as good as a soitain party I won’t name.” 

There ensued a lengthy parley, in which Nellie grew 
more and more relentless the more Kirk threshed about 
in his fetters. He saw that he was absolutely in the power 
of the gloating little woman, and that she knew it. 

“I could put your business on the blink permanent, 
Mr. Kirk. And I’ll do it, too. I hate to see even a woim 
squoim — but when it’s a snake, it looks like my Biblical 
duty to grind my heel in. Besides, you was so proud of 
toining the icy eye on me when I asked for Doctor 
Boikley’s fair share, that every drop of blood I squeeze 
out of that toinip you call a heart is so much Christian 
charity. Now, come down with the cash, and come down 
good, for I’ve got your number, and I can run you into 
the big garadge up at Sing Sing for keeps.” 

The upshot of it was that the agonizing Kirk wrote 
out a check for twenty thousand dollars and hurled it 
at her. She looked it over cynically and said: 

“Is it soitified.?^ How do I know you got funds in 
that bank.?” 

“Do you distrust my business honor.?” thundered Kirk. 

“Oh, my Gawd!” was Nellie’s comment on his heroics. 
“Send out and get this in legal tender, and see that the 
money’s good. I’ll wait.” 

She waited. Kirk required some time to produce the 
cash. He had to call in partners and accomplices and 
drain their accounts dry as well as his own. The best he 
could total was ten thousand dollars and Nellie preferred 
this to any further delay or any proffer of notes and secu- 

223 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

rities. She was fiendishly deliberate in studying the 
bills. 

“You got so many things in this phony garadge,” 
she said, “I shouldn’t be surprised if you did a little 
engraving on the side.” 

At length she was convinced, and she carried her loot 
home with her, leaving Kirk in the general condition of a 
hopelessly flat tire. 

She found Memling pacing the floor in wild anxiety. 
When she spilled the treasure before him he almost 
swooned. And now once more their talk was of an honest 
future. 

The detectives are still looking for those automobiles, 
but without success thus far. 

A remote echo of the event was heard in far-off 
Palatka. One day the sheriff of that marble metropolis 
walked up the streets with unusual dignity. He had had 
a telegram from the “chief constable” of New York City. 

Arrest beauregard kershaw for crime committed in new 
york last Sunday he is tall lean dark long-haired calls self a 
maj or. 

The Palatka marshal had answered with the withering 
contempt the outer world feels for New York’s hopeless 
ignorance of everything worth knowing: 

Chief of Police, New York, New York. 

You durn fool beauregard kershaw aint been to new york 
for two years him and I was fishing Sunday after churcK 
besides beau is a colonel short fat and a bald blond. 

And he sent it collect. 


A Slump in Hopes Preferred 


CHAPTER XLIII 

A SLUMP IN HOPES PREFERRED 

M EMLING had promised himself and Nellie a 
gorgeous wedding ceremony and a honeymoon 
abroad with an honest life ahead, but however To-morrow 
promised, To-day always went into bankruptcy. 

The nymph had brought little but heartache; the 
cinematographic triumph had ended in poverty ; the auto- 
moburglary had resulted in bruises and dissatisfaction. 

There was much money in bank, but it was far from 
enough to endow a life of ease and dignity and Kirk had 
been so tied up by Nellie’s financial raid on his cash that 
Wensome Willie and the other chauffeurs forced Memling 
to disgorge a large part of his proceeds. 

“There’s a conspiracy among honest people against 
the ingenuity of us others,” Memling said. “I couldn’t 
do much worse if I went to work.” 

“Oh, do try it,” Nellie pleaded, for she revered 
Memling the artist, as much as she loved and forgave 
Memling the rogue. 

So he rented a studio in a huge old building in West 
Tenth street, and set up in sculpture once more. But 
a laziness seized and paralyzed him. Commissions were 
not to be had and he lacked the energy to attempt new 
work without promise of a market. The ideal remained 
ideal. 

One afternoon when Memling was in no mood for 
small talk, and the cigarettes were all gone, and he was 
too lazy to go out for more, Nellie left him, and wandered 
^25 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

up the stairs of the rickety rookery, knocking at 
various doors. But everybody seemed to be from home, 
and she had no answer till she pounded on the door of 
gruff old Fritz Sternberg. 

He answered: “Go away, pleass — dammit!” 

So she walked in. 

Fritz had long ago given up painting his early Munich 
landscapes, which Memling described as “nature seen 
through a glass of beer.” Being unable to sell new paint- 
ings of his own, he had drifted into restoring old paintings 
by other people. He had a knack for it, and by working 
incessantly managed to keep himself in kraut and 
cigarettes. Nellie found him frantically cleansing an 
ancient canvas. 

“What are you doing, Mr. Stoinboig?” said Nellie. 
“It’s none of my biz, o’ course, and don’t tell me if you 
don’t want to, but what on oith are you doing You’re 
not rubbing out a painting, are you?” 

“No!” snapped the old man, who read the Evening 
Mail. “I am not rubbing a painting owit; I am making 
a laundrying of my socks.” 

“Oh, pardon me!” said Nellie. “Much obliged for 
the inflammation. Au revoyer!” 

“Make the door to chently ven you go owit,” said 
Sternberg. 

Nellie stared at him with mingled wrath and amuse- 
ment. 

“Well, since you’re so oigent about it, Fritzy, I will 
sit down,” she said, and proceeded to stand at his elbow. 

“Don’t fill up the light, pleass,” said Sternberg, giv- 
ing her a shove. “Do you think you are a lamp?” 

“Well, of all the old Joiman hospitility !” said Nellie, 
moving round to the other side. “It looks like good woik 


A Slump in Hopes Preferred 


to me, except for the dame’s general lack of duds. What 
ails the pitcher 

‘‘Yes,” said Sternberg, and went on scrubbing. 

“Now she’s doin’ the vanishin’ act like she was 
a magician’s helper. I was a medium once. Yes, I was !” 
This statement evoked no response, even when she added 
“Honestogawd,” so she shrugged her shoulders jauntily, 
and said: “Well, if you insist. I’ll tell you all about it. 
Say, for the love of Mike! There’s another pitcher under 
that one! What is it — a landscape, or a cowscape?” 

“Yes,” said Fritz. 

“Maybe it’s a bit of still life?” 

“I vish you are a still lifer, dammit!” 

“Oh, you do know a coupla other woids besides yes, 
don’t you?” 

“No !” 

She bent closer, her pretty face so near to his that 
her hair tickled his nose, and he sneezed. 

“Vill you pleas s take that hair of yours owit of my 
face, and go home mit yourself?” 

“Soitan’y not, Fritzy. A coupla soitan’y nots. You 
got me int’rested, and — oh, I see it now! It’s a coupla 
cows standin’ in a pond and chewin’ nearmint gum, ain’t 
it.?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, what on oith do you wanta rub out a beautiful 
dame, all dressed up in her own figure, for, when what’s 
left is on’y a coupla tons of beef dressed in cowhide?” 

“Yes.” 

“Say, Fritzy, is this the old Heidelboig way a poifect 
gempman treats a T^ifect lady?” 

She buttonholed him, and swung him round. His eyes 
blazed at her from a shag of hair and beard. 

mi 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


“Hello! Was zum Teufel!"’ 

“I’m not talkin’ on the long-distance phone, you know ; 
I’m right with you.” 

“I see you, but vat is loose 

“I was astin’ you why you was rubbin’ that gorgeous 
nymp’ off the slate when all there is underneath her is a 
pair of cattle.'’” 

“Because the nymp’ was painted by some poor 
KlecJcser, and the kettle were painted by Paul Potter.” 

“Paul Potter — the play writer that made Trilbies 
famous.? Since when was he a paintist.?” 

“This Mr. Potter was a Dutchman who flourished — 
flourished two hunnerd feefty years back, and he was a 
great chenius.” 

“Well, what’s the use of flourishin’ two hundred and 
fifty years back ? I’d rather be the Mr. Paul Potter that’s 
flourishin’ now.” 

“Well, since you have no possibility to be eeder of 
de famous Herren Potter, vill you pleass go home once, 
and mind your own verdammte beezness.?” 

“Watch out now, Fritzy, or you’ll insult me in a 
minute. Say, that’s cornin’ out wonderful, ain’t it.?” 

“Vill you keep your hair my eyes owit.?” 

“How’d you like my hair this way.? It’s the latest — 
a la mud, from Paresis.” 

“Oh, geh" zum Henker, Nellie! My nice, sveet Nellie, 
pleass go chump in the ocean!” 

“Well, don’t push me, whatever you do ! I’m goin’ 
as fast as I can. Say, just look at that! Those cows 
are cornin’ out of nothin’ — sumpum like the way I saw 
a negative developed once in a dark room. That artist 
wasn’t so anxious to throw me out as you are, Fritzy. 
Fact is, I had to threaten to bat him over the head with 
^^8 


Fritz the Pfiffig 

his own red lamp before he’d leave me go at all. Those 
photographers are awful devils, some of ’em. Did you ever 
notice that.?” 

Old Sternberg put down his materials with a wild 
glare of apoplexy, went to the door, and howled down 
the stairs: 

“Memlink! Oh, Memlink! Oh, Memli-ink!” 

Soon a voice came faintly from below: 

“Well, what’s the matter.?” 

“Come up here once, vill you, right avay, kavick.?” 

The tone of distress in his voice brought Memling 
hurrying up the stairs to the rescue. He came in panting 
and anxious. 

“What’s the matter, Fritz.? Was ist los?** 

“One of your models is loose, and she strayed in here. 
Take her avay, and put handcuffs on her feet. I gotta 
vork, and she’s gotta talk. You could silence her as easy 
as Niackary Falls.” 

Nellie winked at Memling, and said: 

“The fact is, Doik, this old villain loored me in here, 
and won’t let me go; he has been makin’ vi’lent love to 
me.” 

CHAPTER XLIV 
FRITZ THE PFIFFIG 

I F wrath could have exploded Fritz Sternberg, he would 
have gone through the skylight like a rocket. He 
began to send out German appeals to the devil, the hang- 
man, the heavens, the weather ; he pulled hair and whiskers 
with both hands. Memling tried to quiet him and explain 
that Nellie was never to be taken literally. But Fritz 
stormed on: 

^29 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Gott! Now I got two of ’em ! Und de lock is 
broke on de door. Go home, pleass! I gotta Restore dis 
picture. I can’t leaf it.” 

Memling put up his hand. 

“Go right on; don’t mind us.” 

“If I could get dat fat. policeman up so high as dis, 
I bet I’d have some solitood here.” 

Memling put his arm around the old sputterer, led 
him to his work, and flattered him back to joviality till 
he was chuckling: 

“Dat Nellie, she beats me! Ven she can’t t’ink of 
anyt’ink else to say, she puts her face down on my vork 
and tickles my nose till I’ll be rubbing it two weeks more 
yet, and von’t rub the tickles owit.” 

Nellie had to explain the wonderful work Fritz was 
doing, and she got it all wrong, about the lady who was 
being evicted from the canvas to make room for a flock 
of cows. 

At the name of Paul Potter, Memling grew excited. 
Like most sculptors, Memling painted a little for diversion, 
and to express the color and background he was denied 
in marble. Paul Potter was one of his gods, of course. 

“How in Heaven did they suspect that there was an 
old master like him under the daub.?” 

“Nobody suspected it. It was me found it. They 
vant this lady’s portrait restoret. She was peelink off 
a little, the lady ; and they esk me to touch up the paint.” 

“Every Iddy’s got to be repainted once in so often,” 
said Nellie; but Fritz ignored her. 

“Undemeaf the corner I And the sicknatoor of Paul 
Potter. It makes me such an excitement I cannot help 
peelink more yet.” 

“But how did a Paul Potter ever get painted over?” 

230 


Fritz the Pfiffig 

“You see, some smearer of a fellow who doesn’t know 
who Paul Potter is, vat a greatness he’s got, he needs 
a canvas. He just takes this, and don’t stop to scrape 
off the cows. He just paints a lining over it, and slaps 
on this erschrecMich study in the nood.” 

“It’s a sacrilege,” said Memling indignantly. “But 
isn’t it absolutely ruined.'^ Do you think you can remove 
the daub without removing the Paul Potter, too.?^” 

“How could I be doing it if I couldn’t do it.?*” 

“That’s wonderful — ^you’re wonderful!” 

“You don’t have to tell me. I know I’m wonderfuL 
I am very pfiffig. 

“Come again,” said Nellie. “You’re very what.?^” 

Fritz blustered : *^Pfiffig, I said I” 

“Do it again for Mr. Memling. Listen once, Doik! 
Stand over here a little out of the way. Now say it 
again.” 

Fritz roared: “I said it tvice — pfiffig — pfiffigi’* 

“Ain’t that woid a peach, Doik.^ I gotta use that — 
perfiffikh. Oh, I tell you the fella that wrote the Joiman 
language must a handed himself a good laugh — pfiffikh! 
It’s so convenient, too, when you got a cold or hay fever. 
You can clear your throat, and go right on talkin’. Pro- 
ceed, Fritz, you’re all to the perfiffikh. 

But Memling was serious. 

“How do you remove paint from paint, Fritz? Is 
it a secret process?” 

“Not very. It’s pooblished in some books, but those 
books is not best sellers yet. Over there is a book or 
two Can you read the French lengvitch?” 

Nellie flared up: 

“Can he read the French langwidge? Why, he 
owns the American rights !” 

^31 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Memling consulted a few volumes dumped in a 
corner. 

“May I borrow these?” 

“Do I get ’em back?” 

“I said ‘borrow.’ ” 

“Dot’s vat they all say!” 

“Oh, I’m very eccentric. I return what I borrow.” 

“Get out vit ’em.” 

“I’m not robbing you.?^” 

“Me! I know all dose books has, and lots more be- 
sides.” 

“I’ll take these three. Much obliged. Good-by.” 

“I’ll be much obligeder if you take Nellie mit.” 

“No, thanks, Fritzy, I can’t stay,” Nellie burbled. 
“Just as much obliged, but I can’t stop. Oh, don’t think 
of making tea. Aw revoyer!” 

She 'slipped out just as Fritz threw one of his shoes 
at her. As it clumped against the door, she said: “Nice 
old Joiman, Fritzy !” 

But Memling’s eyes were so deep in the books that 
Nellie had to take his arm to keep him from stepping 
off into space. 

“Watch out, Doik ; you’ll shoot the chutes in a minute. 
Whattaya wanta read books like them for? They got 
no more plot than a time-table.” 

Memling answered: 

“I’ve got one of the greatest ideas of modern times, 
Nellie.” 

“Is that all?” 

“Come in and sit down while I tell you about it — in 
a few words.” 

“In a few woids? Good-by to my hopes of bein’ took 
to dinner! I’m in for a talk Marathon. But wait a 
232 


Fritz the Pfiffig 


minute — sumpum tells me I forgot sumpum. What was 
it I went up to Fritzy’s for? I’ll go ast him.” 

“Better take this Zulu shield.” 

“Oh, I remember ! It was cig’rets ! We’re all out of 
cig’rets, ain’t you? And I started up to rob Fritzy. 
He always has ’em, because he can’t smoke ’em till he 
quits woik. Whilst I was there I got so int’rested in 
watchin’ him currycomb that dame I forgot the cig’rets. 
I tell you, art is an absorbin’ thing, ain’t it. Hoik?” 

But Memling was absorbed in the books. And Nellie 
lightly ascended the stairs once more, buoyed up by the 
vision of the fury of Fritz when he saw her again. The 
vision did not disappoint her. 

Even Memling heard him bellow. When Nellie came 
back she was triumphant. 

“What did you say to poor Fritz?” said Memling. 

“I pushed the door open, and I says : ‘Mr. Stoinboig, 
it is my stoin duty to inform you that I cannot be your 
wife. I was greatly comp’mented by your proposal, but 
I love A Nother.’ When I got that far, he was cornin’ 
after me with a palette knife, so I says: ‘Fritz, for the 
love of moissy, gimme a cig’ret !’ And he slung the box 
at me. It’s a tin box, and kind o’ sharp where it hit, 
but it didn’t come open, so I brang it along. When I 
left, I hoid him pilin’ chairs and tables against the door. 
I guess I’ll go up and tell old pflffikh he’d better dress 
for dinner right away if he’s goin’ to take me to the 
opera.” 

“Let him alone! You’ll stay here and listen to me. 
I’ve got an idea — it’s the very ” 

“I know ; the greatest in the history of the woild. Go 
on — ’pit it out in mamma’s hand.” 

Memling was well used to Nellie’s flippancies, and 

£33 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

knew well that they were but the little frothy ripples over 
a deep sea of devotion. He waited patiently in his big 
chair till she snuggled herself among a multitude of 
cushions on the divan and lighted his cigarette for him, 
and hers for herself, and found ash trays, and asked if 
there was a draft on him, and wouldn’t he rather sit in 
the other chair, or would he have a cushion behind his 
back, and would he like a cuppa tea before he began to 
orate. 

Finally she settled back, and said: 

“All right ; Mrs. Audience is here. Rise the coitain !” 

Then he began: 

“Many of the greatest inventions, Nellie, have been 
inspired by accidents. Great inventors are apt to be 
men who observe accidents and utilize them. I got an 
idea from what we saw up at Fritz Sternberg’s studio. 
Now, what did we see there We saw a ” 

“You ast yourself a question, and then you answer. 
You’re very polite to yourself.” 

“Shut up, Nellie, dear. We saw a masterpiece by a 
great painter painted over by a small painter. The 
masterpiece is brought to this country, and never 
suspected, never examined, till by chance the painting 
is sent to be cleaned of its accumulations of soot and 
dirt, and by accident a bit of the upper painting is 
chipped off, and reveals the signature on the lower paint- 
ing.” 

“And the lower painting is higher art than the upper 
painting.” 

“Don’t trifle, Nellie. Now, does not all this suggest 
something to you.^^” 

“Yes, indeedy!” 

“What does it suggest .5^” 

234j 


Fritz the Pfiffig 

‘‘It sudjests that I’m ready to go to dinner whenever 
you are.” 

“Now, let us utilize this accident, set the force run- 
ning the other way. What a stupid painter did through 
ignorance, and the stupid old Fritz upstairs did through 
accident, let us apply by invention.” 

“Say, Doik, a goil can’t live on big woids, you know. 
I’ll trade you all you’re goin’ to say for the privilege of 
losin’ myself in a platter of Gulfanti’s spaghet’. That’s 
the study in still life I like. Say, Doik, when I die, and 
you sculp me me monument, just have a nonyx pedestal 
upholdin’ a big, immense plate of spaghetti, and write 
on it in Latin: ‘She never could get enough of it till 
now.’ I bet spaghetti would look fine in marble, wouldn’t 
it.? And it would drape nice around the column.” 

“If you don’t keep quiet, you’ll need a monument. 
You get nothing to eat till I tell you my scheme.” 

“I won’t say a woid. Not a sound will I make. As 
for spaghetti, I spoin the very idear of it.” 

Memling was still eloquent in spite of her distractions: 

“Listen, Nellie! You know that the demand for 
foreign paintings is tremendous in this country. It 
swamps the native artist so that he has to have a tariff 
wall to keep him from drowning completely. Works of 
art are charged a high duty. In the case of high-priced 
painters, this adds enormously to their cost. It limits their 
market just so far, and forces people of moderate means 
to buy home-grown paintings. And that, of course, is 
why it is maintained. 

“Nevertheless, there is so big a market for foreigners 
that smuggling is always going on to get their works 
in free. It used to be easy to bribe an official, till the 
government started in to try to get honesty by bribing, 

2S5 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


too — offering so much for exposing smugglers that the 
smugglers themselves couldn’t afford to raise the ante. 
There was one firm that had to refund about a million 
dollars of unpaid duties. 

“Now, of course, it’s possible to smuggle, and get 
help, and it always will be; but it’s too dangerous to be 
a substantial business proposition. But suppose I went 
across the ocean ” 

“Oh, Doik, don’t tell me you’re going to leave me!” 

“Hush! Of course not — how could I.^ Suppose we 
went over there, and came back with about fifty great 
masterpieces neatly painted over with other paint- 
ings ?” 

“Well, wouldn’t you have to pay duty on the other 
paintings, as well as on the other paintings that’s under- 
neath the — er — other paintings Say, unwind me, 

can’t you.f^” 

“No; and that’s the glorious part of my scheme.” 

“You goin’ to bribe the whole U. S. customhouse.^” 

“Not at all.” 

“You goin’ to steal the customhouse and slip ’em 
through surreptitious ?” 

“Not at all — though that’s not a bad idea for the 
future. To steal the U. S. customhouse ! That would be 
interesting !” 

“One thing at a time, Doik. You’re goin’ to steal all 
the old masters — yes, and then ” 

“But I’m not going to steal any old masters. I’m 
going to buy new masters.” 

“Poor boy! The heat has went to your medulla 
obligato !” 

“At least, I’m going to get somebody else to buy 
them for me, and then I’m going to paint other pictures 
2S6 


Fritz the Pfiffig 


over them, and come back to America, and tell the cus- 
toms officers that I’m an American citizen, and I’ve been 
studying abroad, and these are some of my sketches and 
pictures rejected at the salons; and they’ll look them over 
and see how bad they are and say ‘Welcome home, little 
prodigal! Go right back to your papa, and ask him to 
give you a job in his cheese factory.’ And I’ll enter 
the country and vanish, and ” 

“And get old Fritz Stoinboig to scrub your work off 
the woik of the other fellas, and then you’ll sell the other 
fellas for all they’ll bring.” 

“You have it to perfection, except that I shall not 
have Fritz Sternberg do the restoring. In the first place, 
he is too honest to approach.” 

“How do you know he’s so honest?” 

“Because, with all his knowledge of faking antiques 
and touching up chromos, and cleaning off real works 
of art, he is still poor.” 

“Bein’ poor is no proof of bein’ honest, Doik. You 
know that some of the woist crooks on oith don’t know 
where the next meal’s cornin’ from. I’ll talk to Fritz 
if you want. He’d do anything for me.” 

“No, I’ll not approach Fritz; because, if he’s honest, 
he will denounce me to the authorities, and, if he’s dis- 
honest, he’ll want a big share of the proceeds.” 

“But you don’t know how to restore a pitcher.” 

“I didn’t, but I do. This little book tells all about 
it. It’s so simple a child could understand it. Listen. 
I’ll read you a sample from this book. It’s by Charles 
Dalbon, and it’s called ^Traite Technique et Raisonne de 
la Restauration des Tableaux.' ” 

Nellie rolled her eyes wildly. “Oh, how sweet! Did 
you say restaurant and tableaux? I’ve got a beautiful 

2S7 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

tableau in mind of me eating about a million yards of 
spaghetti. Do I get it.?^” 

“Listen. I’ll translate a little of it as I go along.” 
And he read it off as foUows, translating the words just 
as they ran: 

“In wishing to execute the de- varnishing of an ancient pic- 
ture^ the practician perspicacious well often perceives himself 
that the said picture has been outrageously repainted formerly 
by a restorator unskillful or improvised, who not knowing to 
reaccord the original tones or not wishing to give himself the 
pain, has found nothing better to do than repaint it in part. 

“In the presence of a picture thus maltreated, there is not 
to hesitate. One ought without any fear to make disappear 
the coating obnoxious which in much of cases recovers a color 
primitive charming and not having no need but of light re- 
touches. 

“Is that clear, Nellie.'^” 

“Clear as mud! Say, do you like spaghetti better 
au gratin, or ar I’ltalienny Or what do you like best 
on it.?” 

“A mixture of alcohol and of essence of turpentine 

“Toipentine on spaghetti! Oh, Doik, what are you 
saying.?” 

“I’m reading, and will you please omit that spa- 
ghetti .?” 

“That’s what I’m doing, Doik. I’m omitting it hard.” 

“Listen, will you.?” And he threw her a glare that 
almost impressed her. 

“A mixture of alcohol and of essence of turpentine, in let- 
ting dominate the first liquid, is all indicated to uplift the re- 
paints. If the color is tenacious and hard, the alcohol pure 

238 


Fritz the Pfiffig 

could be employed and the usage of the scraper would some- 
times be necessary to the accomplishment of the work. The 
force of the mixture will be enfeebled step by step in propor- 
tion as one approaches the original color, in order that no al- 
teration of that produce itself. 

‘‘Are you listening, Nellie.?” 

“I’m listening just as I did when I hoid Sara Boin- 
hardt play ‘La Toscar.’ I listened so hard I sprained 
both ears, but I couldn’t understand anything but the 
gestures, and I was unsoitain about a lotta them.” 

Memling waved for silence, and prepared to read on, 
but she waved back. 

“If you’re going to restore anything, restore me quick, 
for I’m fading away.” She rose, closed the book in spite 
of him, brought his hat, set it on his head, and dragged 
him away, saying : “Leave those old masters be, and take 
care of this young missus.” 

But all through the supper he was thinking over his 
campaign, and whispering his schemes across the table to 
Nellie, who was more interested in pursuing the evasive 
spaghetti round and round her fork. 

“While you’re inventin’ so much, Doik, you’d oughta 
patent a way for taming spaghetti so’s a poifect lady 
could take her cargo aboard without ruining the appetite 
of everybody within sight.” 

“There’s millions in it, Nellie,” said Memling earnestly. 

“Do you think so.?” she exclaimed joyously. “Millions 
in a spaghetti spear.?” 

He glowered. 

“I’m speaking of my great smugglery scheme.” 

^“I suppose,” she retorted, “that, being an American 
citizen, your first ambition would naturally be to beat the 
gov’ment out of sumpum.” 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“Naturally. But I’m thinking more of the educa- 
tional aspect. By enriching our native land with master- 
pieces in spite of itself, we shall be accomplishing a great 
achievement in the history of ” 

“There you go as per usual,” Nellie gasped. “You’re 
alv/ays slippin’ a little hypodoimic injection into your 
conscience. I bet if you stole the candy off a baby, you’d 
say it was for the educational value to the baby and to 
save it from future misery in its turn.” 

“Well, be that as it may, doesn’t the idea of an ocean 
voyage stir you up?” 

“I’m afraid it will. You see, Doik, I never cross on 
the ferry to Joisey City on a rough day without sufferin’. 
It would be a case of nightmare all night and mal de mare 
all day.” 

“But think of the reward — think of the money we’U 
make !” 

“Maybe — and, then again, maybe not. But it seems 
t’ me that we’re sailin’ a long distance to borry trouble, 
when there’s such a plenty of it right near our reach. 
And sumpum seems to whisper in my year that we’ll come 
home in the steerage, or ridin’ on the trucks underneath 
the ship.” 


CHAPTER XLV 

A DUEL WITH STRUBEL 

E verything graceful, beautiful, and lovable on 
earth seems to have its ugly under side, as every 
useful thing has its abuseful phase. And the mirror of 
art devoted to revealing the world its own charms or its 

240 


A Duel with Strut el 

own truths has its dull quicksilver surface, where dust and 
microbes gather and flourish. 

There seems never to have been a time when tricksters 
have not taken advantage of mankind’s love of glass beads 
or diamonds, or statues or paintings, or antique what-nots. 
Among all the ancient line of aesthetical crooks. Max 
Strubel was hardly surpassed in instinct for what was 
good art, and for what was a good imitation of what was 
good art. 

There were countless other financial paths he might 
have followed, many of which would have yielded him 
greater profits for less work and less risk, both of purse 
and of liberty. 

Horse-racing would have been far more exciting, with- 
out greater risk; and counterfeiting would have been far 
more profitable, without greater danger. 

But Strubel preferred to deal with painters and 
sculptors, and to deal with them crookedly. It was to 
Strubel that Memling had gone when he kidnaped the 
inartistic statue of the old Revolutionary general. 

It was to Strubel that Memling prepared to turn now. 
He broached the plan as he and Nellie strolled back to 
his studio after dinner. Nellie was in a mood of spaghetti 
beatitude, but she found energy enough to oppose the 
idea of Strubel bitterly. She had never forgiven him for 
playing the yellow quitter, and leaving them to be ruined 
by the too great success of their cinematographic crime. 

“But whom else have we to go to, Nellie, dear.?^” 
Memling pleaded patiently, for he had an almost super- 
stitious respect for Nellie’s intuitions. 

“Why’ve we gotta gota anybody ?” she answered. 
“You wouldn’t take old Fritzy into the laundry work on 
your canvases for fear he’d want part of the money, and 

241 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


yet you’re gona take Strubel in. And you know that 
he lets you do all the woik, and all he asks is all the 
money.” 

Memling’s reply was: “I repeat, Nellie, who else is 
there.? We need a stack of money a mile high. Our 
steamer fare has to he found, and our living expenses 
in Paris for six months or more, and the market price 
of a lot of paintings, and our fare hack to America.” 

‘‘And you expect Struhel to make a cough like that.? 
What do you think he is — Camille.?” 

“He’d cough his head off if he thought he could 
sell it. Especially if he thought he could sell it as some- 
body else’s head — an ancient Greek, for instance.” 

But Nellie sniffed: 

“Max Strubel’s head would never be mistooken for 
ancient Greek.” 

The upshot of the debate was that Nellie could sug- 
gest no substitute, and she told Memling to send for him, 
but contented herself with a reservation: 

“Mark my woids, Doik, in the foist place, he’ll never 
send us abroad; and, in the second place, after he does, 
he’ll never bring us back; and, in the thoid place, when 
we’re back, he’ll not market your pitchers; and when he 
does, we won’t see a cent of what he gets for ’em.” 

“Admitting all that, we’ll at least get to Paris.” 

“I’ll believe Paris when I see it. Go on and telephone 
your Strubel. But make him come to you if you expect 
to get anything out of him, and take a high hand, or 
he’ll send you over in the steerage, and check me at the 
old ladies’ home.” 

Strubel answered the telephone in person. He sug- 
gested that Memling call at his office the next day. He 
could not possibly see Memling to-night, for he was going 
242 


A Duel with Strut el 


to the opera with some rich art fanciers. But when 
Memling calmly said he would not trouble Strubel, but 
would close with another big dealer he knew, Strubel said 
he would come over at once in a taxicab. 

Before the slow street car had reached Memling’s 
corner, Strubel had evidently realized that he was being 
led by the nose, and that he had lost the first move in 
whatever game was to be played. He entered Memling’s 
studio in a grim humor, as much as to say: 

“I’m here, but I left my pocketbook at home.” 

Memling and Nellie had been frantically discussing 
the best means of attack on the wily Strubel, and they 
were at loggerheads when he rang. 

“I’ll do a disappear, and retoin anonymous,” said 
Nellie as she fled. 

Before he answered the bell, Memling called up Slinky 
Green at a pool room he haunted, and, in a low voice, 
told him to ring Memling’s number in half an hour, and 
permit himself to be talked to; then, ten minutes later, 
to ring again ; and again in five minutes. 

Then he dawdled to the door, and admitted the anxious 
Strubel, greeting him with a friendly yawn. 

“Sorry to drag you down here, Strubel, when the 
opera is so much pleasanter than the song I have to sing.” 

“And is not so oxpensive,” interpolated Strubel. 

“Oh, no indeed! You could have a box for several 
seasons on what my project will cost. But, as I was 
saying, I shouldn’t have dreamed of dragging you down 
here if certain rivals of yours were not so impatient to 
close. But I said it wouldn’t be fair till I had consulted 
you. I didn’t give them your name, of course, any more 
than I’d give you theirs. There should be honor even 
among — artists and art dealers, Strubie.” 

243 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Strubel eyed Memling with the suspicious and anxious 
stare of the traditional bird charmed by the snake. He 
was fascinated and tempted in spite of his instinctive 
tendency to disbelieve everything. But it is impossible 
to disbelieve everything, for disbelief in one thing implies 
faith in its contradiction — and Memling was always full 
of contradictions. 

Memling urged Strubel to drop into a chair and have 
one of Fritz’s cigarettes. Strubel declined to put himself 
even under the obligation of smoke. He produced a 
burly cigar of his own — one that was meant to inspire 
terror. It suggested a policeman’s club, and as he talked 
it swung up and down in his teeth like a baton. 

He draped one eyelid halfway over one eye, and, 
seizing his cigar violently with his teeth, emitted a growl 
that meant: ‘‘Go on.” 

Memling looked him over scornfully, and said: 

“Not a bit like it, Strubie. You look like a cheap 
vaudeville actor’s imitation of Napoleon or Czolgosz. You 
know that the only way a dub like you can make money 
is to invest it in something that real brains think up. 
The one kindness a poor genius can do a rich man is to 
show him a new way to spend a lot of money with a 
chance of getting some of it back. Now, I’m going 
to offer you such a chance, because I owe you a grudge 
and you owe me an apology. So I’m going to give you 
a chance to support Nellie and me in Paris or thereabouts 
for, perhaps, a year, and intrust me with a heap of money 
besides. You won’t take the chance, but later, when 
you’re kicking your fat self all over town, just hand your- 
self a couple of good swift kicks for me, and imagine 
me saying: ‘Well, I gave you your chance.’ ” 

Strubel brandished his cigar threateningly. 

244 


A Duel with Strut el 


“Get to it ! Get to it ! What’s it all about?” 

Memling gave him a scenario of the plot as he had 
sketched it to Nellie. He added: 

“And incidentally, while I’m over there, I might steal 
a number of great ancient masterpieces, paint them over, 
smuggle them through, and later you can sell them 
to some private collectors who will keep them in the 
dark.” 

“They beat you to the Mona Lisa,” Strubel grunted. 

“Yes, and it’s a shame. Maybe some of those ever- 
present copyists that always hide the best pictures in the 
Louvre, painted her over, and carried her off as a copy 
of the adjoining picture. Maybe some private owner is 
gloating over his ill-gotten treasure now. I might steal 
you a couple of Raphaels and a Velasquez or two.” 

Strubel answered: “Not for me; it’s dishonest.” 

Memjing smiled. “What a rotten actor you are, 
Strubie!” 

Strubel almost dared to get actually angry, but he 
substituted ridicule: 

“All you want me to do is to keep you. and Nellie in 
comfort till you get tired, and then it’s up to me to sell 
the pictures you steal.” 

“Naturally. Don’t you like the scheme?” 

“I like it so well that I’ll give you the easy end of 
it. You stay here and scrape up the expenses, and I’ll 
go over and be art student, and bring back my studies.” 

Memling’s look was still more frankly scornful. 

“Strubel, you know that if you ever appeared at the 
customs, and claimed to be an artist, a laugh would go 
up that would swing the Brooklyn Bridge off its hinges. 
They’d get diamonds out of you if they had to use a 
stomach pump. You look less like an artist than anybody 

245 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

on earth. Pardon me a minute; the telephone is ring- 
ing.” 

Memling went to the telephone, and when Slinky’s 
voice sneaked across the wire: “Hello, guvnor; here I 
am !” Memling spoke to him as if he were a firm of 
importers : 

“Hello, Mr. — er — I recognize your voice, of course. 
Yes, he’s here; he came all the way from White Plains 
to try to get the chance to back my scheme. Well, I 
haven’t told him your offer yet, and if he doesn’t raise 
your bet I’ll certainly give you the first chance. You 
might call up later.” 

Memling hung up the receiver, and winked at Strubel. 

“Pardon my taking you in vain. Of course, I know 
you won’t pay any price for the scheme, and I’m just 
trying to boost the other fellow.” 

“How do you know I won’t beck it.^ How much does 
the other firm offer.?” 

Memling gave him so high a figure that he almost 
rolled to the floor. 

He told a hundred reasons why the scheme was futile, 
and Memling knew he had him. When Slinky called up 
again, Memling, announced to the imaginary dealer that 
he thought he’d have to take his figure, as his other friend 
would not go so high. 

Strubel broke in with wild gestures that Memling 
ignored. When he hung up again, Strubel said : 

“Those fellers got no mazuma. I’ll beck you, but I 
won’t send Nellie.” 

“Oh, yes, you will,” Nellie said, coming frankly forth 
from the eaves where she was eavesdropping. 

“For why shoult I sent you?” Strubel demanded. 

“Because Hoik will have to have a model, anyway, 

240 


The Angel on the Front Cloud 

and I’m not goin’ to let him paint those French ladies. 
In the second place, Doik needs a noisse or somebody to 
take care of him. In the thoid place, I’m goin’, any- 
way.” 

Strubel refused to give down, and Nellie refused to 
give up. At the height of the deadlock, the faithful 
Slinky rang the telephone again, and Memling was just 
consenting to close the deal with him when Strubel threw 
up his hands, assented to pay Nellie’s expenses also, and 
a salary as “noisse,” and hoped that the boat would sink 
with her. 

Then Memling graciously commanded Strubel to get 
the steamer tickets, insisted on the best or none, and bade 
him good night. 


CHAPTER XLVI 

THE ANGEL ON THE FRONT CLOUD 

I F anybody with a sense of humor ever gets to 
heaven,” Dirk Memling was saying, “he ought to 
hunt for a seat on a front cloud, where he can watch 
the funny farce that’s going on down here.” 

“Don’t distoib yourself about angels, Doik,” Nellie 
answered; “you take a seat on the front of this infoinal 
trunk, and see if I can lock it. We’re bound the opposite 
way from heaven — Paris.” 

Memling sat on the trunk, and Nellie tried in vain 
to snap the clasps. 

“Can’t you make yourself a little heavier, Doik ? Seems 
to me you’re sittin’ awful light.” 

Memling endeavored to make a sledge hammer of 

247 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


himself, and eventually the gaping jaws of the trunk 
closed, and Nellie fastened them together before they 
could get away. She sank back on the floor, gasping 
for breath, and Memling went on, musing aloud: 

“As I was saying, we must be an awful joke from 
an angel’s eye view. You know that the farce that makes 
the audience laugh the hardest is the one where the actors 
take themselves most seriously and get themselves into 
the most trouble, misunderstand each other, come in at 
the wrong door, and all that sort of thing. Just think 
what a treat the audiences away up above the nigger 
heaven must have watching us flounder.” 

“Maybe the audiences up there ain’t as crool as we 
are,” said Nellie. “Maybe they feel sorry for what hoits. 
Maybe the angels don’t laugh when a poisson’s feet slip 
out and they land on the back of their neck.” 

“Maybe not,” sighed Memling, “but heaven must be 
a solemn place, then ; for Heaven knows what we’d laugh 
at on earth if we didn’t laugh at other people’s blunders 
and bewilderments. The educated man even learns to 
laugh at his own.” 

“Well, then we hadn’t otta ever stop snickering,” 
said Nellie, “for Gawd knows we simply skip from one 
tangle to another. And now come and help me tie up 
these steamer rugs. I lost us the steamer once before 
on account that Joiman waiter we stole the fiddle for. 
For He’m’s sake, don’t you lose us this one.” 

They caught the steamer — the great Morganatic — in 
good season, saw all their luggage bestowed aboard, and 
stood staring at New York for a farewell gloat, when 
things began to happen that must have made the angel 
on the front cloud sit up and take notice. 

Nellie had just finished saying: “Doik, there’s a 

248 


The Angel on the Front Cloud 

soitain sumpum that tells me this is too good to be 

And then Nellie’s finger nails nipped Memling’s arm 
till he yowled. Gold-tooth Lesher was coming up the 
gangplank. He saw them, and spread them a glittering 
smile. 

The gaudy pattern of his clothes, his ostentatious 
prosperity, and his overbubbling joviality promised them 
humiliation enough ; but there was a grave danger in 
his company. 

“If he goes on the same boat with us I’ll jump over- 
board!” Nellie stormed. “He’s got a tongue as long 
and as loose as the ocean. He gave us away once before,, 
and the first day out he’ll ’a’ told everybody on board 
everything he knows.” 

“But what can we do?” Memling wailed. “I can’t 
throw him off.” 

Nellie thought fiercely. Then: 

“I gotta idea that’s simpluh supoib ! Loor him ashore, 
and lose him.” 

“How? I’m not much of a lurer.” 

“Offer him a drink at one of those gilded saloons on 
the water front.” 

“But there’s a cafe on board.” 

“Tell him it’s a temperance boat. He’ll believe you. 
Tell him you forgotta lay in a stock of wettables.” 

“But suppose I get left, too?” 

“You can’t get left. Just show him a saloon, and 
he’ll go to it. Then you cut and run.” 

“All right. But it’s taking a desperate chance.” 

“If he’s left on this boat we won’t have a chance — 
even a desprut one.” 

Gold-tooth had reached them now, and he overwhelmed 
them with his effusion. He explained his presence proudly, 

249 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

and with much evidence of the importance of teeth in 
articulation. 

“I’m on my way to Franshe,” he said. “All good 
horshe-rashing is did in Franshe now. In America the 
horshe is a dead dog — dead by act of legishlasher. I’m 
goin’ to Franshe to follow the rashes. Don’t know a 
word of Franshe language, but I can undershtan’ lan- 
guage of horshes’ hind legs as good as anybody. What 
jou sho shour about, guvnor.?” 

Nellie gave the reason: “He’s just found out that 
this boat is a prohibition boat. No drinks served for 
seven days.” 

“Oh, Gawd!” Gold-tooth groaned. “And I ain’t got 
sho mush as a flashk.” 

“Mr. Memling was just going ashore to lay in a 
little private stock,” Nellie murmured. 

“Lay in enough for me,” Gold-tooth pleaded. 

“I’m afraid I couldn’t carry that much,” Memling 
suggested. 

“Better go with him,” Nellie hinted. 

“Exshellent idea!” averred Gold-tooth, and he took 
Memling’s arm. Nellie’s triumph was somewhat marred 
by her view of the desperate grip Gold-tooth kept on 
Memling’s elbow. 

Seeing that Gold-tooth had left his hand luggage at 
her feet, she got a steward to set it ashore. Then 
she went to her own stateroom to see what a stateroom 
looked like. 

The bugles and the cries of “All ashore that’s going 
ashore!” came faintly to her. She was watching through 
a porthole for Memling’s return. She could catch only 
a glimpse of feet hurrying up and down the gangplank. 
She hoped that two of those were his. 

250 


The Angel on the Front Cloud 

As she went back to the upper deck, there was a 
sense of motion under her feet. She wondered where 
Memling was — looking for her, no doubt, as she for 
him. She cast her eyes in a farewell gaze over the masses 
of heads and blurring faces. Down in the heart of the 
great pier she saw a man moving. It was Memling. The 
tenacious Gold-tooth Lesher had been too much for him. 

Memling, frantically running to the various openings 
of the pier, and finally to the platform outside, kept 
shouting something to the frantic Nellie. But the clamor 
of whistles, tugs, and cheers blotted it out. 

She ran to the various officers, all of them very busy 
and brusque. One of them at last spared her the time 
to tell her that she could go back on the boat that dropped 
the pilot. 

Memling, in a ferocious frame of mind, with self- 
disgust and alarm for Nellie, raged and yelled; then 
turned back, wondering what to do. He would send her 
a wireless that he would take the next steamer, and she 
was to wait for him at the Grand Hotel in Cherbourg. 

It was now that the farce began to unroll be- 
fore the front-cloud spectator, and Memling and Nellie 
played it with all that tragic earnestness that makes good 
farce. 

Memling might have chartered a taxitug and caught 
up with the monster as it slowly wallowed down the bay ; 
but, not being a millionaire, he no more thought of a 
tug than of hiring an aeroplane to drop him on the deck. 
He was not thinking of much, in fact, except profanity 
that might express his disgust and his dismay. 

In his panic, he learned that another ship, the swift 
rival, Kaiser Hemrich der Kleine, was sailing from another 
pier, a faster ship that left half an hour later than the 
^51 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Morganatic, and was due to arrive out a day earlier. By 
a mighty burst of speed, Memling caught it. 

He got aboard just before the gangplank came ashore. 
At almost the same moment Nellie was shuddering down 
a flopping ladder to a bobbing pilot boat on her way back 
fo New York. 


CHAPTER XLVII 

“AT SIXES”— 

I F Memling had been a little cleverer, or a little less 
clever, and if Nellie had acted just t’other way 
around, she would have remained aboard the Morganatic 
and met Memling at Cherbourg, or he would have stayed 
ashore and met her when she got back. But if human 
beings could foresee what other human beings are going 
to do, the world would be everything that it is not. And 
so long as people go on doing what they do, instead of 
what they should have done, complications will continue 
to furnish us historians with important chronicles like 
this. 

As soon as Memling came to pay for his new berth on 
the Kaiser Heinrich der Kleine, he realized that he had 
deposited his letter of credit and most of his cash with 
the purser of the Morganatic, Thus it is that admirable 
foresight is often as fatal in its consequences as careless 
neglect. 

Also his entire baggage was aboard the other ship, 
and all his wardrobe except what he had about his person. 
This was a dilemma, indeed, to the exquisite Memling, 
but he trusted to fate to show him a way to buy, beg, 
252 


''At Sixes’'— 


or borrow changes of linen. He did not care to steal 
them, because he was on his vacation. 

He managed to dig up enough to pay for his state- 
room, but it left him in a state of financial stringency 
bordering on penury. 

He went at once to the cabin of the wireless operator 
to send word to Nellie. His heart ached for her as he 
pictured her wringing her hands in helpless terror at 
her situation, alone on a strange ship bound for a strange 
land. So he wrote out this message: 

Miss Nellie Gaskell, on board S. S. Morganatic. 

Will explain mishap later. Managed to catch the Kaiser 
Heinrich der Kleine, and expect to reach Cherbourg the day 
before you. Will meet you there. Don’t worry. Best love. 

D. Memling. 

In the state of his pocketbook, he growled at having 
to pay for a four-word title for his ship, but he forgot 
this regret in his cordial appreciation of the charming 
invention of Mr. Marconi. The operator informed him 
that there were many messages ahead of his, but he 
would get it off as soon as possible. Memling set out 
to promenade the deck till he should receive an answer 
from Nellie. 

He found it strangely pleasant to be prowling out 
into the Atlantic, lonely as he was. His stride had a lilt 
of youth in it. 

Suddenly he caught a glimpse of Roger Van Veen 
just rounding the deck, and coming toward him. A 
gust of wind attempted Van Veen’s hat, and his hand 
leaped to recover it. This gesture caught his eyes from 
Memling, and permitted Memling to side-step into the 
companionway, and parachute to his own cabin. 

253 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


Van Veen had promised secrecy and nonpursuit, but 
he had not promised not to warn the ship’s company, or 
the French police, to keep an eye on Memling. 

In mingled fear and rage, Memling shut himself in 
his gloomy inside stateroom, and sentenced himself to 
a solitary cell for the whole voyage. He must pretend 
to be acutely and persistently seasick; and he would 
not dare venture out, except perhaps in the extremely 
late or extremely early hours. Memling threw himself 
on his bunk, and cursed his fate with the voluble eloquence 
of a sailor. The profession of the thief has its lonely 
hours like any other. 

Thus cabined and confined, the time seemed trebly 
heavy while he waited for Nellie’s answer. His wireless 
to her had been a long, long while on the hook, and the 
operator on the Morganatic was at lunch when the Kaiser 
Heinrich man first called him. He did not answer. By 
the time the Morganatic man had eaten his noonday snack 
and returned to his keys, the Kaiser Heinrich man had 
gone to his own mess. 

Eventually, however, Memling’s telegram hopped 
across space to the Morganatic, and being written down 
was carefully placed in the mail box “G,” after a mes- 
senger had knocked on Nellie’s door, and left a note 
beneath it to the effect that she would find a telegram at 
the mail desk. 

But that wireless never reached its destination. 

When Memling learned that his wireless to Nellie on 
the Morganatic had been received and acknowledged, he 
awaited an answer for what seemed a cycle of Cathay. 
Then he sent the steward aloft again, demanding the 
reason for Nellie’s failure to answer. Hours more passed, 
and finally he grew alarmed. Wild notions spun through 

S54 


"At Sixes’’— 

his mind. Nellie had fallen ill, Nellie had gone out of 
her head, Nellie had done almost anything that Nellie 
had not done. 

At last he grew desperate enough to venture a tele- 
gram to the captain of the Morganatic, asking if Miss 
N. Gaskell had received a wireless from D. Memling, and, 
if so, why had she not answered. The captain turned it 
over to the first officer, and he to the second officer, 
and he passed it on to the chief steward of the dining 
saloon, who discovered that Nellie had not engaged a 
place at table, so he slipped it to the chief deck steward, 
who found to his horror that Nellie had not rented a 
steamer chair. 

Eventually, the telegram was turned over to the 
purser, who placed it among the papers to be taken up 
in due order. Later a wireless came to the purser: 

Are you all dead on board the Morganatic? Wireless tele- 
grams to Miss N. Gaskell, and to the captain of your aban- 
doned ship remain unanswered. Do you need assistance? — if 
so, send up a rocket — if not, please reply to my question. 
Why does not Miss N. Gaskell answer my telegram? 

The alkaline bitterness of this stirred the purser to 
action, and he sent inquiries out in every direction. In 
overdue course of time, the question reached somebody 
who remembered helping a lady into the pilot boat. 

Memling was chewing his knuckles on the inside of 
his inside stateroom when this message reached the Kaiser 
Heinrich : 

Regret report before arrival your telegram. Miss N. Gas- 
kell left in pilot boat, saying would return New York. 
Kindly wire what disposition you wish made luggage and safe 
deposit. Purser, Morganatic* 


255 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

And now that Memling knew a little more, he was 
a great deal more alarmed, and twice as much distraught. 
Where on earth or ocean was Nellie now.? And how 
under heaven was he to reach her.? Pilot boats do not 
carry wireless equipment. Their ports and voyages are 
uncertain to the last degree. If he sent word to his 
studio — ^but that was locked up; to her boarding house — 
where was that.? And would she go there.? Would she 
be carried off by those pilots.? 

He trembled for her in such a crowd. She was pretty 
and indiscreet — of a type that men were forever ap- 
proaching. He himself had never suspected the nobler 
side of her great heart till he had known her long and 
long. ^ 

His fantastic imagination speedily twisted “pilot” into 
“pirate,” and he saw her in the clutches of a buccaneer 
Morgan, or a Captain Kidd. His impulse was to leap 
through the porthole and run across the ocean till he 
found the rakish craft, board it, rescue Nellie, and scuttle 
the cursed vessel. But he did not attempt it. For one 
thing, he was in an inside stateroom, and there was no 
porthole; and if there had been one he could not have 
squeezed through it. 

Of all the forms and follies of wishing, land wishes 
on shipboard are certainly the least profitable. When 
Memling had fatigued his temper by overexercise, he set 
about thinking calmly. Gradually he figured out that 
just what could happen, might happen. He saw Nellie 
arriving eventually at the studio, thinking that he had 
remained in New York. He felt that, failing to find him 
there, she would call upon Fritz Sternberg. Ergo, the 
thing to do was to wireless Fritzy to look out for her. 

And so he composed a message. It gave him new 

256 


Sixes’’— 

hope, and appeased his fiery temper, but it cast Fritz 
into despair, and kindled his temper to temperatures 
hitherto unreached. And this was the message: 

Please find Nellie Gaskell when she returns to New York 
and tell her I am on board the Kaiser Heinrich der Kleine 
and help her to take the next steamer to Cherbourg where I 
will wait for her please help her to get funds somehow, and 
have her telegraph me here just when she sails, and on what 
boat I will gladly repay you for any expense, and be eter- 
nally grateful for any trouble you take. 

Dirk Memling. 

Dirk had composed this document with a rapturous 
pen, and had told the steward to have the toll charged 
to his account. He had not the faintest idea how he 
should pay the account before he landed, but he trusted 
to luck for that. 

Fritz Sternberg was so deeply engrossed in using the 
last few moments of sunlight on a critical bit of work, 
that when the boy arrived with the marconigram, Fritz 
let him knock unanswered. When, at length, the boy 
sauntered in, with that perfectly-at-homeness of the mes- 
senger boy, and tugged at Fritz’s elbow with a gum-chewn 

“Sa-a-ay, I got a messitch for Fritz rushed him 

to the door and almost had him thrown down the stairs 
before the lad extricated himself. 

When Fritz read the telegram, it was Sanskrit to 
him. He signed the book, sent the boy away, and re-read 
the message. The last he had seen of Memling and Nellie 
was when they told him they were sailing on the ilfor- 
ganatic, to be gone three months. He had graciously 
answered : 


257 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“Bone voyitch and goot riddance, and pleass to stay 
three years.” 

And now he got a message from Memling on the 
Kaiser Heinrich der Kleine, telling him to find Nellie 
when she returned to New York, and simply get her on 
another steamer and pay all her expenses. To Fritz, who 
was never sure of to-morrow’s lager, this should have been 
a huge joke, but there was no such word as “joke” in 
the bright Worterbuch of Fritzy. 

He read and re-read till the last precious drop of 
light had been squeezed out of the tube of day. Then 
he took the telegram to the sorrowful place where he 
drank his meals. He and various Teutonic friends dis- 
cussed the message over their frugal repast of caraway 
seeds. They advised him not to “bodder his het over it.” 

But Fritzy had the heart of a Sister of Charity 
under the manner of a man-hating hyena, and he an- 
swered : 

*Ach, gerechter Himmel, a feller can get mad once 
and shvear a little, but if a nice feller like Memlink tells 
him a vireless to go find a nice girl like Nellie, he’s gotta 
go find her, ain’t it? But vere do I find her?” 

One of his cronies suggested: 

“You might go by de station house, und esk a 
Schutzmann” 

But Fritzy had asked policemen things before, and 
either because they did not like his accent, or he did not 
like theirs, the results had been unsatisfactory. He shook 
his head hard. Another beer friend had an idea : 

“You should go hire a detecter to detect her !” 

Fritz shook his head harder: “Dose detect-stiffs dey 
don’t detect nutting but how much money you got to 
spend. It don’t take long to detect my money.” 

^58 


— ''and Sevens'' 

A third neighbor had a Bavarian inspiration: 

“To-night you take a atvertizement to a paper; to- 
morrow he prints it ; she reads it ; dere iss it !” 

But Fritz would none of these; he would go forth 
and find Nellie by pure force of will. He went forth, 
and he used up all the force he had. Midnight found 
him so exhausted that he could hardly creep into the 
studio building. He looked at the steps and groaned, sank 
on the first, and fell asleep. 


CHAPTER XLVIII 
—“AND SEVENS” 

N ellie had taken care of herself in a hard world 
too long to behave as Memling feared. She had 
spent but little time in the futile exercise of wringing her 
own hands. She had rushed hither and yon asking ques- 
tions, till she learned that the pilot would be dropped into a 
pilot boat once he had conducted the ship to the outer 
water gates. And she had insisted on returning with him. 

Nellie was not happy on the little pilot boat, for it 
made a mountain out of every molehill wave, and soon 
reduced Nellie to a state of grave anxiety as to her own 
table of contents. 

She watched the huge black precipice of the Mor- 
ganatic move on and dwindle to a sausage, and from that 
to nothing. Later she watched the Kaiser Hemrich der 
Kleine grow and lessen out of sight in pursuit; but she 
never dreamed that Memling was in one of its bunks, 
wondering why she did not answer his marconigram. 

259 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


To her physical uncertainty was added a sudden grave 
alarm, for the pilots on the pilot boat were many, and 
they wished to stay out at sea till each had picked up 
a ship to guide uptown. 

One of them was reciting to another his experience in 
a pilot boat some years before when the big wind blew 
so hard that the boat was six days getting back, and 
on short rations at that. And he pointed now to signs 
in the sky that another big wind was gathering. 

Nellie sat pondering the appalling situation. She 
pictured Memling wringing his hands on the dock in 
helpless terror, for to Nelhe, Memling was a wonderful 
child of genius and misfortune who could hardly have 
survived for a day without her fostering care. The one 
thing for her to do was to get back to her lost child. 
The thought of spending several days on the ocean in the 
flip-flop, pitch-toss, roll, and slidder of that pilot boat 
was not to be entertained. 

After a hasty debate, Nellie’s faculties unanimously 
passed a resolution to get ashore at once. But Nellie’s 
life was one of such crooked customs that it never occurred 
to her to go to the captain of the pilot boat and state 
the exact facts. Oh, no; facts would never do. She 
thought up another scheme, and advanced upon the more 
or less superior deck hand with that brand of siren charm 
which she supposed would most captivate a sailor. 

“Cap’n — for you are the cap’n, ain’t you.? — ah, I 
thought so ! On’y a blind goil would make a mistake as 
to who’s who in this bunch. And you got a nawful cute 
little ship here, too. I could just sail on and on for all 
etoinity in a ship like this is, with a conductor — er — 
cap’n — like you on the front platform — er, whatever you 
call it.” 


S60 


— ''and Sevens'' 

“Why, thank you, miss ; thank you. I’m much obliged, 
thank you.” 

“Don’t mensh, commodore. But zize abouta say, I’ve 
gotta hotfoot back to New York, and while I loined to 
swim a coupla strokes down at dear old Coney Island, 
I never got to be no rival of Rosa Pitonoff, and I guess 
it would kind of stump a moimaid to swim from here to 
shore.” 

“What in thunder did you get off the ship for, 
anyhow.?” the sea wolf growled. 

“You see, admiral, I suddenly remembered that I for- 
gotta leave my canary bold with a soitain party I was 
goin’ to leave it with. And I was goin’ to get some boid 
seed, too, and I forgotta to do that, so I just hadda 
toin back.” 

“Why didn’t you send a wireless?” 

“That boid can’t read ! He can’t even sing ! So 
what would be the use of sendin’ a wireless to a songless ?” 

“I mean, why didn’t you send a wireless to somebody 
to go get the bird?” 

“Well, now, do you know, I never thought of that. 
Ain’t I the silly? But it takes a sailor to think of things 
■ — a pilot especially. I suppose there ain’t any kind of 
men that has to think of so many things so quick as 
a pilot’s got to, is there?” 

“Well, maybe not, miss, but I can’t afford to take 
you to shore now — not for several days — unless I could 
put you on some inbound liner.” 

“When’s the next inbounder goin’ to bound in?” 

“We’re expectin’ to pick up a couple to-morrow after- 
noon, if there ain’t a fog.” 

“Oh, I just couldn’t wait. You’ve really gotta put me 
ashore, commodore.” 


mi 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“But I can’t afford it, I tell you.” 

Nellie had a few dollars below her kneecap, but they 
would have made a poor showing as a bribe, and, besides, 
they would be vitally necessary to herself, so she said : 

“I’d cheerfully reimboisse you for the extra expense, 
admiral, but unfortunately havin’ left my valuables with 
the poisser, I — I can only offer you the undying thanks 
of one that has always spoke well of sailors, and especially 
of pilots. Oh, I think a pilot is ” 

“Yes, I know, but 

“Once you get me ashore, and I can hunt up my 
gentleman friend, he would cheerfully reim ” 

“Maybe he would, and maybe he wouldn’t.” 

“O’ course, I could give you a check on the Foist 
National Bank, but my check book is on the Morganatic/* 

It took Nellie two hours of the most persistent wheed- 
ling to teach that sea wolf to eat out of her hand, and 
it would take two hours to describe her wiles and her 
dodges. When he fled to the cubby-hole he called his 
cabin, she followed him there, and perhaps, in view of 
her desperate needs, she may have overpowered him with 
a kiss or two and the promise of many more when he 
came ashore the next time. 

But however that may be, the other pilots were even- 
tually wrought to infuriation at seeing the prow turned 
landward. But Nellie went among them with such sooth- 
ing speeches that the captain waxed jealous, and only 
the angel on the front cloud knows what battles were 
fought aboard that craft after Nellie left it in a swooping 
and slumping rowboat that shot her through the breakers 
and deposited her on the sands of Far Rockaway. 

This was not unfamiliar ground to Nellie, but she was 
in no mood to revel in its festivities. She hastened to a 
262 


— ''and Sevens'" 

telephone booth to call up Memling’s studio. She wished 
that she had sent him a wireless at that address be- 
fore she left the Morganatic. But she had not thought 
of it. 

It was a hot day for telephone-boothing, but Nellie 
sentenced herself to the stifling cell. That angel on the 
front cloud must have stopped laughing by this time, 
and begun to feel sorry for those two severed wretches 
groping through space for news of one another ; Memhng 
in a stuffy stateroom pretending to be seasick, and grow- 
ing so, while he kept the steward running to and from the 
wireless room till the operator threatened the man’s life; 
Nellie in the airless telephone booth, hammering the 
receiver hook, and nagging the central to keep ringing the 
old studio. 

And the Morganatic speeding sublimely along with 
all their funds and clothes, except what Nellie had flung 
into her suit case, for the big trunks were in the hold, 
and the cabin trunks had not been lowered into the pilot 
boat. 

After Nellie had berated the telephone centrals as a 
class and as individuals for their failure to obtain her 
number, she remembered that Memling had discontinued 
his telephone when he gave up his studio. She would 
have fainted in the booth if there had been room for a 
comfortable collapse. 

But perhaps the telephone company had not removed 
the instrument yet. Heaven knew they were slow enough 
putting it in. And where else could she seek Memling.? 
When he missed the boat he must have gone somewhere. 
He was probably sending wireless telegrams to her to 
come back — or to go on. He had probably wirelessed 
263 


The Amiable Crimes of, Dirk Memling 

that he would follow on the next steamer — or had he? 
Would he or wouldn’t he? — or what? 

Here were two needles looking for each other in a 
haystacked world. 

She pounded and stormed at the telephone. Once she 
got a “don’t answer,” and this confirmed her in her guess 
that the telephone had not been extracted. She made 
one more call, and got a “busy.” This gave her vast 
joy; it meant that Memling was there, and probably 
telephoning telegrams to her. So, encouraged, she re- 
mained in the booth, fanning herself as best she could 
with the sliding door, wliile a line of other would-be tele- 
phonists fumed outside. 

At last, however, she got a cold, final word from a 
line manager that the telephone was discontinued, can- 
celed, and removed. This left her nothing to do but go 
back to town. She was faint with hunger and gaunt with 
anxiety. She ate a lonely dinner at a crowded restaurant. 

Many men ogled her, many men smiled at her, one 
man asked her if the empty seat at her table was taken. 
She settled them all with little delay. She was anxious 
and angry, and she felt in no humor for refined measures, 
or ladylike timidities. 

To the affable Lothario from Passaic who asked her, 
“Is this seat taken, kiddo?” she answered daintily: “You 
just try to set there and I’ll soive you this plate of clam 
chowder across that poiple shoit you’re sportin’.” 

It was hardly what Lady Guinevere would have said 
to a prospective Lancelot, but it accomplished its purpose, 
and that, after all, is the main thing. And later, when 
Nellie hastened to the train and met the knight-errant 
again, he erred rapidly to the other side of the street. 

The train to town was loaded with the usual jetsam 

264 


— "'and Sevens'' 

of a day at the beach. Aside from the dejected mothers 
with the fagged children and the woebegone husbands, 
the rest were all hilarious and frankly spoony couples. 
Every young man’s shoulder had two heads on it. Nellie 
wondered where her own third shoulder was. Among all 
her speculations, she never dreamed that a widening 
expanse of ocean was dividing it from her head. 

She reached New York late. It was the same old New 
York of a dark, hot summer night. The studio was like 
a huge and empty oven. The janitor should have been 
sitting on the cellar steps in his shirt sleeves, and he 
should have stared at her with amazement, but the janitor 
had gone to South Beach for his outing. 

The street was almost deserted, and the studio build- 
ing apparently abandoned. It wore the loneliness of a 
ruined abbey in an unfrequented forest. She climbed the 
stairs to Memling’s studio, lugging the suitcase, and rang 
the bell and knocked on the door. The clamor seemed only 
to disturb the solitude within. 

She slumped down on the steps, and felt as lonely as 
a little sphinx in a desert of Egyptian gloom. At last 
she bethought her of Eritzy Sternberg, whom she loved to 
tease, and whose ferocious outbursts of temper amused her 
so deliciously. 

If worst came to worst, she would hunt down Strubel, 
but she hated him so enthusiastically that she postponed 
him as a last resort. She would seek Eritzy, and make 
him help her find Memling. Eritzy would rave against 
the interruption to his work, but it was his duty to aid 
her since he was the cause, however innocent, of the whole 
enterprise so ill begun. 

She dragged her weary legs up the long stairs, and 
rapped on his door. There was almost a laugh of relief 

^65 


The Amiable Crimes of, Dirk Memling 

in her very tap. She listened smiling for his howl of rage : 
“I am owit ; go avay, dammit pleass !” But now the echo 
of her knuckles was her only answer. 

The lock was broken, for Fritzy never seemed to have 
the time or the money to mend it. She pushed the door 
open, and looked in. The skylight glimmered spectrally, 
and shed just enough illumination to emphasize the empti- 
ness of the shadows. She called, and had no answer. She 
ventured in and stared at the cot whereon he flung his 
weary frame when sleep whelmed him. It was untenanted. 

She sat down on a broken-legged stool, and waited till 
the loneliness affrighted her, and drove her back to the 
spooky hall. She slipped down the steps drearily to try 
Memling’s door again. If she could force it she could 
sleep there on the cushionless window seat. 

At the head of the flight of steps leading to Memling’s 
floor, she paused. She heard footsteps coming up the 
stairs. It might be Fritzy! No, that shifty shufl3e was 
never made by his honest clodhoppers. 

Whoever it was paused on the landing below, and 
fumbled at Memling’s door, paused, knocked, and rang. 
Whoever it was was evidently drunk, and muttering 
thickly. 

At length there was a sudden spurt of flame, and the 
flare of a lighted match. Like a tiny spotlight, it painted 
on the gloom the bleary face of Gold-tooth Lesher. 

The slimy old scoundrel held the match close to the 
door, and Nellie felt a sharp thrust of fear that he was 
going to set the building on Are in revenge for Memling’s 
trick in decoying him from the boat. 

But Lesher’s motive was not incendiary. The match 
burned his finger, and he dropped it with a wet-voiced 
>curse, and stepped on it. He lighted another, and, 
266 


■''and Sevens"" 


peering so close that he nearly set his own red nose on 
fire, he read: 

**Dirk Memling, Shculptor; gone to Europe, back in 
shicksh monsh/' 

Lesher let the match burn him again, cursed again, 
stamped it out, and vanished from Nellie’s view, but his 
voice came from the dark: 

“Gone to Europe — tha’sha j oke ! If he did, he shwum 
it!” 

Then she heard him stumble down the stairs, muttering. 

Nellie sank again on the stairway, scowling at fate. 
It seemed that the only person discoverable in all the 
world was the one she least wanted to meet. She was 
afraid to leave the building yet a while, lest she run upon 
Gold-tooth Lesher. She was eaten up with curiosity as to 
what he had done to keep Memling from catching the 
boat, but she preferred to learn it from Memling. 

So she sat pounding her mind in the effort to strike 
out some spark of inspiration as to where she might find 
Memling. Meanwhile, she would be waiting for Fritzy. 
He could not stay away forever. 

The angel on the front cloud could have told her many 
things, but well-bred audiences do not call out remarks 
to the actors, however easily a word or two of informa- 
tion might solve the dilemma. 

And so the angel did not relieve the tormented Nellie 
with a cool drop of information, though he might have 
told her that the reason she could not find Fritzy was that 
Fritzy could not find her. 

Even when Fritzy came in and sank exhausted at the 
foot of the stairs, the angel made no sign. He may have 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

had a smile out of the situation: Nellie on the top step 
asleep, waiting for Fritz ; Fritz on the bottom step asleep, 
waiting for Nellie. 


CHAPTER XLIX 

THE LOST IS PARTLY FOUND 

I T was the janitor who set the stopped clock in motion 
again. Returning late from his evening’s recreation, 
he stumbled over Fritz’s feet, and ordered him to mount 
to his own domain. 

The yawning German went aloft on all fours. Nellie 
was too tired to hear him. He found her with a sheaf of 
moonbeams caressing her through a hall skylight. She 
looked like a madonna, and his heart ached for her till 
she woke with a gasp of terror, recognized him with a 
drowsy smile, and murmured, to tease him: 

“Well, Fritzy, you didn’t expect to find me waitin’ 
at the choich, did you.? Well, what’d you say if I told 
you I shook Doik and toined back to marry you, and 
settle down right here.?” 

This restored Fritz to his customary manner. He 
exploded : 

“By golly, Nellie, I don’t know how I ain’t murdered 
you already. I am so glad ven yoii go across de ocean, 
I been singing songs about Nellie’s gone to Europa — 
hooray ! hooray ! And now I gotta sing de cat is 
zuriickgeTcommen.** 

She laughed and led the way into the studio, and 
told him to light a light and lend her a cigarette and 
take a chair, and when he had obeyed, fuming, she said : 
268 


The Lost is Partly Found 

“Pm lookin’ for Doik Memling. I lost him. Have 
you seen him?” 

“Have I seen him? I am a good see-er, but I can’t 
see across a ocean.” 

“Ocean nothing! He lost the boat. That’s why I 
came back.” 

Fritz searched his pocket, and found the telegram, 
handed it to her, and watched the effect of the news on 
her face. He saw bewilderment, astonishment, unbelief, 
horror, and panic chase one another about her features. 
She stared from the telegram to him and back to the 
telegram. Her first spoken thought was for Dirk. 

“Poor Doik, how he musta worried. Wasn’t it sweet 
of him to think of sending woid to you?” 

“Ach, how sveet!” Fritz growled. “I am obliged to 
him for soch a sveetness. I got no foots left in my shoes 
because he is soch a sveeter. Veil, I did find you ; he says 
go back to Europe. So go do it, yes?” 

“He also says you’re to foinish me with the funds.” 

“Me! I ain’t got a single dam’ fund. If I had 
money enough for to go to Europa, I’d keep it and go 
over mit myself.” 

“Do you know anybody who has any money to lend?” 

“If I knewed somebody except a pawnbreaker, who 
could lend me something, I could use him myself.” 

“It looks kind of hopeless, don’t it?” 

“Pm full of hope you vill go home and let me sleep. 
I am asleep now.” 

“You’re not going to toin me out at such a hour?” 

“Pm going to turn you owit and turn me in.” 

“Not if I see you foist!” 

*Lieher Gott, Nellie!” he cried in terror. “You don’t 
sleep here, do you?” 


269 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


“O’ course I do!” 

“But, Nellie — hilf Himmel! Nellie, you ” 

“Don’t poitoib yourself, Fritzy; you got no occasion 
to be afraid of me, and Gawd knows I ain’t afraid of you.” 

“But, Nellie ” 

“I could sleep standin’ up, but, if you don’t mind, this 
window seat is just the thing.” She stretched her weary 
length along the frayed cushions. “I’ve slep’ in lots of 
woisse places. I gotta get a little rest somehow so’s 
to-morra I can figger out where I’m goin’ to raise the 
cash to get to that Choiboig where Doik will be waitin’ 
for me. Call me at se’m-thoity. Good night, Fr-z-z-z!” 
She was already asleep. 

“Nellie, if you gotta stay here, take my Bett, pleass — 
I don’t mind a chair. I like it — I hate to sleep in a Bett» 
Honest !” 

There was no answer. 

Fritz stared at her in stupefaction. Her temerity 
shocked him wide awake. 

If the angel on the front cloud were not respectably 
asleep at this hour, he might have seen Fritz staring while 
the moonlight moved across the floor and spread a silver 
aureole about the beauty of the sleeping girl. A little 
later he would have seen the weary body shiver with the 
chill, and the dazed old painter take what had once been 
a Bagdad curtain from his own couch and lay it over her 
with a gentleness that did not disturb the deep and 
rhythmic breathing of her bosom. 

Then Fritz stumbled to his couch, and lay there lean- 
ing on one elbow to stare at his strange visitor, till sleep 
pulled down his eyelids and his shaggy head, and the 
second curtain of the farce. 

£70 


Coffee and Rolls 


CHAPTER L 
COFFEE AND ROLLS 

N ellie slept so thoroughly and so late that it was 
well on into the forenoon before she began to have 
nightmares of jumbled horror. She dreamed that she 
was suffocating in a telephone booth on board a pilot 
boat, which was trying to cut across the bows of the 
Kaiser Heinrich der Kleine. She could not get out to 
warn Memling to stop the ship. And she saw the vast 
bulk reeling through the waves, with its prow like a giant’s 
razor, dooming the pilot boat to destruction. 

The ship caught the little craft amidships, and shivered 
its timbers, hurling Nellie to the deck with terrific force. 

She woke up with a scream, to find herself sprawling 
on the floor, and Fritz Sternberg gazing at her from the 
edge of his couch. She thought he was a life-saver in 
a lifeboat for a moment, and tried to swim. Her scream 
had scattered his slumber, and he was as puzzled to find 
her there as she to be there. 

After a brief interchange of stares, their memories 
returned, and she began to laugh. Fritzy almost smiled. 
She disentangled her feet from the well-shredded Bagdad, 
and said: 

“Fritz, you gave me this coitain off your own downy, 
and you’re soitan’y a poifec’ gempman, if ever they was 
one. In retoin for your kindness. I’ll get your breakfast 
for us. You go on out and buy a bunch of hen fruit, 
fresh from the cold storage, and I’ll wash me face and 
set some water to boilin’. I see you got a tin cup and 

^71 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


a alcohol lamp — a regular artist’s kitchenette. Is there 
any coffee in that paint-brush jar.^ Have you got the 
price of the eggs? ’Cause, if you haven’t, I’ll stake you 
if you’ll toin your face the other way a minute.” 

But Fritzy proudly denied his poverty, and sallied 
forth for the eggs. He stopped in a saloon long enough 
to scrub his face and hands. When he reached the heights 
again, he found Nellie and the alcohol lamp both singing 
pleasantly, and the aroma of coffee abroad in the 
room. 

It gave Fritzy almost an impulse toward matrimony 
to note how charming it was to find a pretty woman pret- 
tily cooking his breakfast. But Nellie began at once to 
tell him her plans : 

“I got it all thunk out, Fritzy; foist thing to do is 
to send that poor, blessed Hoik a marconigram saying 
I got me feet on terror foima, and I’ve engaged a upper 
boith on the next steamer. Who is the next steamer, 
Fritzy Did you happen to get a morning WoiV or 
Joinal, no.? Well, don’t trouble to go down for it; I’ll 
get one on me way out. 

“Next, I’m going to call on Max Strubel, and strike 
him for me car fare across the briny. Do you know 
Strubel? No? Well, you’re luckier than what you think. 
He thinks he’s a turrible floit, but he’s got the beauty 
and the charm of a tomatta woim, and I’d as lief have 
one for a companion. But I’ve gotta talk to him and be 
polite. You haven’t got a coupla cannon and a tomahawk 
you’ll lend me, have you? Well, then, how about that 
palette knife? You could clean it afterward if I had 
to use it on him.” 

Fritzy was more and more appalled as Nellie unfolded 
her scheme. He declined to lend the palette knife, and 

272 


Strut el at Bay 


he implored her to keep away from Strubel. He promised 
that if she would wait he would get her a steamer ticket. 

“What you going to poichase it with, Fritzy? Joiman 
lessons? Or was you thinkin’ of painting one for me? 
You know, Doik said to take the first steamer for Choiboig, 
not the last one. Don’t you fret your dear fat old head 
over Strubel. I know him. I’m not afraid of him. I 
just kind of feel a loathing for him, like being close to 
a soipent.” 

None of Fritz’s arguments could restrain her. She 
set forth to Strubel’s art gallery, which occupied the 
larger part of what was formerly a residence on Fifth 
Avenue. It was too early for the class of customers 
whom Strubel’s objects of art appealed to and she was 
ushered to his private office. 


CHAPTER LI 


STRUBEL AT BAY 


CANVAS just unpacked was set upon his desk. He 



snipped the last cord from the packing paper with 
a pair of shears. Then he stood off, admiring the paint- 
ing. Then Nellie appeared. As he stared at her, his 
heavy eyes were shot with surprise. 

“You are not on the Morkanettic?'* he gasped. “Or 
are you your own ghost?” 

Nellie briefly explained the situation. Strubel laughed 
hoarsely : 

“Ah, veil, I did not vant you should go. Now Memlink 
is safe avay, and my feskinatink Nellie is here vit me — 
yes? How beautiful you are! I vonder could I get a 


273 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

refund for dose tickets! Sit down once! Ah, my pretty 
Nellie it is better you are here dan on de awful ocean. 
Memlink is fleertink now vit some other lady, and you 
have come to see poor old Strubie, yes?” 

“Yes!” said Nellie coldly, evading the hand that 
reached for her. 

“It is better Memlink should be by himself. He works 
fester. And I am anxious he should begin to send me 
pictures. Look at thees. I get it thees mornink by the 
gustomhouse. It is a chenuine Uzanne. Uzanne is the 
feshionable painter now. My agent in Paris pays feefty 
t’ousant francs — ten t’ousant dollars for thees paintink — 
and soch a leetle one! Just a lady’s face smeared over a 
curtain ! 

“And I have to pay feefteen percent duty on it. 
Feefteen hundret dollars I hand over to that loafer of a 
Oncle Sam! 

“If Memlink had been there he’d ’a’ painted another 
picture over this, and call it his own vork, and bring 
it in free, and then we sponge off the Memlink and leave 
the Uzanne, and I make feefteen hundret more profit. It 
is a good scheme. 

“But let us talk about us, you and me, Nellie. There 
is not moch business now. Everybody is out of the ceety. 
You and me should be out of the ceety. What do you 
say to a nice leetle automobeelink to some nice leetle 
place.?” 

“I say, much obliged, Strubie, but I got another 
engagement.” He raised his eyebrows. She added: 
“With Doik Memling.” 

He laughed. “It is a long-deestance engachement, 
yes — across the ocean, yes?” 

“Yes,” she said. “I’m sailing on the Mutterlmd 

^74 


Strubel at Bay 


Thoisday, to-morra, and I’ve gotta tap you for the fare.” 

He regarded her with slyness: “Ain’t you got the 
fare.f^” 

Nellie shrugged her left shoulder. “Strubie,” she said, 
“if Orient poils was sellin’ at ten bones a bushel, I could 
just about poichase a stickpin.” 

Strubel rubbed his hands, as if he foresaw a triumph. 

“You know, Nellie,” he cooed, “I didn’t vant you 
should go, and the because vy is because I — because I — 
vant you should stay. I lof you. Be my vife. I got 
such a loneliness since you left, I ain’t got my right mind 
on me at all; only yesterday a fella nearly got a 
chenuine Besnard at cost price off me. Nellie, glatly 
vill I give you de fare across de ocean if you oh-promise- 
me to stay on this side — huh.?” 

He looked his prettiest, and seized her in his arms, 
and drew her gently to him. She pushed him away with 
rude energy. He caught her more fiercely, and smothered 
her in his fat embrace, and pursed all his lips to kiss 
her. 

His murmurs of amorous content changed to a sharp 
yelp. She had picked up the pair of scissors from his 
desk, and had partly closed them on one lobe of his left 
ear. 

He dared not move, but his arms fell from about her 
shoulders, and his mouth changed from' osculation to 
trepidation. 

“Don’t move,” Nellie said, “and don’t grab my hand, 
for if I was to press more’n so hard, I might snip off 
one of your flappers. Now, Strubie, you’re goin’ to listen 
to reason. I don’t like you, and I’d rather a sea lion 
kissed me than you. If Doik was drownded, and you was 
the on’y man left on oith, I’d choose to be a old maid. 

275 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


Do you get me? O’ course, you don’t get me, but do you? 
Now, back into the garadge and behave!” 

Cold pearls stood out on Strubel’s forehead, and he 
retreated without delay, rubbing his ear to make sure 
it was still there. But once out of her reach his fury 
came on him in a geyser. 

“All right, I don’t get you. Good! Now you get 
out, before I have the police take you out!” 

Nellie’s answer was an uproarious laugh of ridicule. 

“Oh, Strubie, do you ummagine I’ll fall for that? 
You call the police, and toin me over to him! What 
would I be doin’ in the meanwhile? What would I be 
moimurin’ in the ear of that cop about the fake pitchers 
you got here? You know you ain’t talkin’ to some poor 
millionaire boob, Strubie; you’re not pullin’ your shop 
talk on a customer, but on a commoicial traveler in the 
same line. Bein’ a lady, I just hate to keep a secret. If 
I once begin to poicolate what I know, this buildin’ of 
yours will wear a sign sayin’ : ‘To let on account of 
proprietor having went up the river a while.’ ” 

“Who’d believe you?” 

“They’d believe the canvases and the statues, and the 
things I could point out. Now, Strubie, you listen here 
a minute! I’ve came here to get my transportation, and 
I’ll get it or I’ll go through your reputation like a lorn 
mower. But before I tackle that. I’ll give some of these 
pitchers a hair cut. This new painting by Mr. Ozone, or 
whatever it is, that cost you fifty thousand frankfurters, 
I like this. I think I’ll just cut this lady’s face out of 
this canvas so’s it’ll be convenienter to carry off. Don’t 
come closer, Strubie, or the shears might slip.” 

He stared at her with such anguish of wrath that 
she felt almost sorry for him. She smiled: 

276 


Strubel at Bay 

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Strubie: I’ll sell you this 
Ozone pitcher. I’ll sell it cheap on account of proprietor 
bein’ called to Europe! I’ll let you have it for less than 
half the duty on it. Put five hundred in my mitt, and 
I’ll exit laughing.” 

He called her every name he could think of, and he 
thought copiously. But the sight of those scissors of 
Damocles hovering over his precious canvas, and the 
knowledge of what blackmail Nellie could levy on him, 
brought him to terms. He worked at the combination 
on his safe several times before he heard the yielding click. 
He took forth an imposing bundle of yellow paper. Nellie 
regarded it with respect. 

“Been gettin’ your hay in, ain’t you, Strubie Slip 
over a coupla extra pitchforks, will you?” 

“If I only had a pitchfork I could use it,” he growled. 
“Dere is five century notes, and I hope the ship explodes 
you into mincemeat!” 

“You’re entirely welcome, Strubie, and I wish you 
many happy retoins of the day. I’ll tell Doik how much 
we owe to your coiteous consideration, and we shall be 
etoinally your obedient soivant.” 

She scooped up the notes, counted them; snipped off 
a tiny corner of one of them, and chuckled: 

“There’s your commission, Strubie. Good-by darling !” 
And she went out, taking the shears with her. 

She was shivering with triumphant laughter all the 
way to the steamship oflSce. She bought herself a better 
stateroom than she had intended, because she was getting 
rid of Strubel’s money. And she chuckled from Sandy 
Hook to the Needles as she reclined in her steamer chair, 
trying to look as if it were not her first voyage. 

The angel on the front cloud may have been laughing 

277 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

with her, or he may have been laughing because from his 
vantage point he could see what a maelstrom of trouble 
was brewing for her around the quays of Cherbourg, 
where Dirk Memling had promised to meet her — had 
promised to meet her. 


CHAPTER LII 

NELLIE DISCOVERS FRANCE 

I F I’d ’a’ been slammed ashore on Robinson Caruso’s 
island all by me lonesome, I couldn’t feel lonesomer 
than what I feel lonesome now,” Nellie Gaskell was 
mumbling to herself for company. Crowds surrounded 
her, but she knew nobody. She faced the city of Cher- 
bourg, and was afraid of it. She looked back over her 
left shoulder, and saw the huge steamer Mutterlandy 
which had brought her across the sea, already dwindling 
off toward its German port, after exuding its Paris-bound 
passengers on board a tender. 

Nellie sat on somebody’s else trunk, and kicked her 
heels against somebody’s else initials. And then a porter 
came up and pulled the trunk out from under her. She 
had to stand up, and her shoes were too tight. She had 
saved them to wear down the gangplank, because he was 
to have met her, and a gangplank is a good place to 
show off shoes. Item, the toes were patent leather; item, 
buckles of silver-near. 

Her plight was pitiful. She was friendless and French- 
less in France. And her shoes were too tight. And her 
other shoes were in her trunk. And she didn’t know where 
her trunk was. 


^78 


Nellie Discovers France 

After the harrowing series of mishaps that had at- 
tended her efforts to reach Paris with Dirk Memling, it 
seemed hardly possible that Fate should have another 
knife up her sleeve. Nellie bitterly recalled her motto: 

“Poik up, old goil, the woist that ever was can always 
get a little woisser.” 

But Doik hadn’t otta not met her. He knew she 
didn’t know enough French to keep from starving at a 
tabble dot. Besides, he had sent her a wireless that he 
would be at the shore end of the gangplank, and she 
had hurried down the cleated way with her face all made 
up to greet him. Her smiles had relaxed like curtains 
slowly lowered. 

She had run hither and yon about the dock, dodging 
the facteurs as they catapulted trunks in all directions 
and howled “At-taw-shaw !” whatever that meant. But 
never a Memling she found. The other passengers had 
stampeded every which way, identifying luggage, and 
seeing it carried into the room where the customs officers 
made a polite pretense of examining things. 

In time the trunks and the passengers and their parcels 
were stowed on the funny train which was evidently pant- 
ing to get back to Paris. But no Memling came for 
Nellie. 

A number of uniformed Frenchmen poured out a vast 
amount of words which Nellie supposed to be French; 
but she drearily shook her head, and answered: 

“I don’t get you, Gastong.” 

Nellie was so pretty that it was not hard even for 
a Frenchman to be polite to her, but she could not, or 
would not, understand. 

Finally two interpreters approached her, and ad- 
dressed her in English. They explained graciously that 

279 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

she should get her trunks through the customs, and get 
herself on board the train. They thought they knew 
English, but they had not met with East Side New 
Yorkese. Her answer threw them into complete dis- 
order : 

“Nay, nay, Pauline! Nix on the choo-choo for mine. 
A soitain poisson Marconies me he’ll toin up at the dock; 
so I’m all to the Cassie Bianca; The goil stood on the 
homin’ dock’ — ^you know the rest.” 

The first interpreter walked apart with the second 
interpreter, and said: 

“What language is it she speaks ? And who is 
Pauline 

The second interpreter leaned on the first interpreter, 
and answered: 

“But yes; but who is Choo-Choo.? Some words are 
nearly Angleesh, but they do not mean somesing togezzer, 
and some words mean nos sing alone, so perhaps it is 
Indian she talks.” 

“But Choo-Choo is Chinois!” 

They debated the mystic syllables, but all they got 
from them was a headache; also a vague notion that she 
was waiting for somebody named Bianca. 

They asked her again if she were expecting perhaps 
somebody. 

“Sure, Mike!” she brightened. 

“What is it her name, please.? Is it Pauline or 
Bianca.?” 

Nellie laughed Nellishly. “Her name! Pauline! I’d 
like you to hand that to him !” 

“Ah, she is a him.?” 

“Her am.” 

“Then perhaps if you will tell us who it is he is, we 

280 


Nellie Discovers France 


could write him a little blue — a telegram, and he comes 
or answers. Who is it he is, and where, please?” 

Nellie could not resist answering with an expression 
her Irish mother had used to use: 

“If you knew that and had your supper, you could 
go to bed.” 

The interpreters looked at each other and blushed, 
particularly the married one. She explained: 

“If you could put me wise to where he is, you’d be 
some intoipreter.” 

The unmarried interpreter desperately urged: 

“You wish to go to Paris, yes?” 

“Yes, but not as any monologue act. I’m one of a 
team. Get me ?” 

The married interpreter found Nellie so pretty that 
he was tempted to the romantic sublimity of offering to 
leave wife and children to beg in Cherbourg while he 
escorted her ; and the unmarried interpreter trembled with 
a similar declaration; but the chief guard of the train 
intervened with a Now or Never, and Nellie, answering 
rather what his watch implied than what his French de- 
clared, said: 

“Don’t let me lose your job on you, conductor. I 
couldn’t get you another.” 

The conductor lifted his hat and signaled the engine 
driver to move on. 

The train writhed out of the station, glided along the 
quay, and slid from sight like a many- jointed snake. It 
left the interpreters to their own desperate devices with 
Nellie. 

Once more they asked her who it was that that gentle- 
man was who was so blessed as to be waited for by her, 
and so cursed as to keep her waiting. Nellie began to 

281 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

explain Dirk Memling’s name and appearance, when an 
old habit of caution checked her. 

An iciclic chill formed on her heart, in a sudden dread 
that Memling had failed her because he had been arrested 
on some one of the dozen charges that were always hang- 
ing over his beautiful head. Or perhaps he was hovering 
in the vicinity, not daring to appear. Perhaps he was 
even now watching her from behind some building, or 
trunk, or door. Perhaps he was waving vain signals to 
her from a lair. 

To give Memling’s name or describe him might bring 
down no end of disasters. She decided not to divulge it, 
at any hazard of distress for herself. 

Therein must lie one of the chief inconveniences of 
the thief’s profession. Every art has its drawbacks, of 
course, and this must be thievery’s. The constant necessity 
for anonymity or pseudonymity is surely one of the major 
hardships of dishonesty. And, until the invisible cloak of 
the ring of Gyges becomes a practical reality instead of 
a fictional dream, thieves must put up with the most 
irritating complications of this sort. 

But Nellie looked so little like a thief that dear old 
Lombroso himself would have gladly welcomed her into 
his household. As for the interpreters, when she turned 
pale at their query, and declined to name or limn her 
absent cavalier, they could imagine nothing wickeder than 
a lovers’ tryst, a clandestine adventure or an elopement. 

Their romantic hearts bled to see it so mismanaged. 
They offered the waif all the hospitality they could afford. 
They answered such questions of hers as they could under- 
stand, and they saw that she had refreshments. Both 
of them were impelled to submit themselves as substitutes 
for the missing eloper, and neither quite dared. 

282 


On to Paris 


CHAPTER LIII 
ON TO PARIS 

T he distant town looked fascinatingly attractive to 
Nellie; it seemed to beckon her to wander the 
twisted streets among the crazy roofs. 

But she refused to be beguiled from that platform. 
She was sure that the moment she left it Memling would 
arrive, look about, and, not finding her, disappear for- 
ever. 

And so she waited hour after hour, crying a little now 
and then, swearing a little now and then, and simply 
perishing for a cigarette all the while. 

Eventually the afternoon waned into evening ; the 
gloaming deepened, and the fears that had come with 
twilight gathered round her. It was lonely on the dock, 
and even the interpreters had gone to dinner; the refresh- 
ment room and the telegraph office were closed. 

And then a loping cab horse came scrambling into view, 
striking sparks from the sharp paving stones. Nellie 
knew who was in the cab before she saw the dim figure, 
familiar even in silhouette, standing up and waving fran- 
tically. 

She ran to meet him, crying “Doik ! Doik !” and nearly 
embraced the horse. The driver furiously hauled the poor 
old hack to its bony haunches, and emitted guttural pro- 
tests, while Memling leaped to the ground, caught Nellie 
in his arms, and encouraged her to a few comfortable 
tears. 


283 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


“I knew you’d wait for me,” Memling murmured. 
“You always stay put, don’t you.?” 

“Do I.?” she asked, sobbing deliciously. “But wbat 
on oith detained you, Doik.? Did you oversleep as per 
usual, or just forget, or what.?” 

“Oversleep! Forget! What made me late was being 
too early.” 

“Oily.? Yes, for the next boat; but I came on this 
one.” 

“I’ll never do it again,” Memling vowed. 

“Do what again.?” 

“Use forethought and caution, and all that sort of 
thing. Every time I take old Father Time by the fore- 
lock, he knees me in the stomach. Never in my life did 
I set out extra early to make a train that I didn’t get 
left.” 

“There’s sumpum in what you say, Doik,” Nellie 
philosophized. “Trust to luck and you got a chance — not 
much, but some. But use your brain and it seems like 
you was challengin’ the Fates to a duel. They feel they 
gotta show you what a woim you really are.” 

“I was so afraid that the regular boat express from 
Paris might be delayed, and you might have to wait here, 
that I took a train four hours earlier. And so, of course, 
I ran into a neat bit of sabotage.” 

“Sabo — ^what?” 

“It’s the latest French invention. You see, there’s 
a big railroad strike on, and the strikers do all the damage 
they can by leaving things undone. They didn’t want 
to upset the boat express, so they chose the train I took. 
Some track layers took the spikes out of a couple of rails, 
and just forgot to put them back. My train came along, 
and turned a somersault at a little village — there’s a 

284 


On to Paris 


beautiful old church there, built in the thirteenth cen- 
tury.” 

“That thoiteen explains it,” Nellie interposed. 
“Weren’t you killed or anything.?” 

“I got a few bumps, that’s all; and I stood on my 
head for twenty minutes till I was pulled out feet first, 
but I wasn’t damaged.” 

“Maybe you got intoinal injuries!” Nellie gasped, 
with all of the laity’s superstitious dread of that mystic 
form of damage. 

“Maybe,” said Memling; “but the main thing is I’m 
so mad I could whip the entire labor union single-handed. 
They got the track repaired and the wreckage cleared 
up just in time to let the boat express go through. I 
watched it shoot past at sixty-five miles an hour. Then 
my train got under way, and limped along, stopping at 
every little village, and pausing to let six expresses go by. 
I couldn’t catch one of them. I got into the main station 
at Cherbourg a few minutes ago, and took a cab to the 
dock, hoping against hope that you would have stayed’ 
And you did. God bless you, you did I” 

“I’ve loined that when you say ‘Meet me at a soitain 
spot,’ that’s the spot I’m supposed to meet you at.” 

“Weren’t you worried sick.?” 

“Oh, no; I was simply in a Toikish bath, that’s all. 
But the main thing is, we’ve met up again. Let’s get 
a pair of handcuffs and lock ourselves together, and throw 
the key away, so we won’t lose us any more.” 

“That’s a good idea,” said Memling, locking hands 
with her. “Jump in the cab.” 

“You’re not goin’ to drive to Paris in this poor old 
horse and buggy.?” 

“Lord, no! We’re going to the gave in Cherbourg, 

285 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

and take an express to Paris. There’s one leaving in a 
few minutes.” 

“But what about the dinner question? I could take 
care of sumpum to eat simply elegant about now.” 

“We’ll eat on the train.” 

“Do they have dining cars in this country?” 

“Now, Nellie, you mustn’t think that France is slow. 
In a thousand ways it makes New York look like the 
little neck of the backwoods.” 

“Well, o’ course, the only Frenchmen I ever knew 
were waiters. They weren’t any slower than all waiters 
are. And then again, I saw Sarah Boinhardt, but I 
couldn’t get much of a line on what she said. Still, live 
and loin is my trade-mark.” 

They caught the train, and it swept them to Paris 
at a speed that set Nellie to gasping. She could see 
little of France but the lights of the cities they sped 
through, and she saw little of these because she slept 
most of the way. The sea air and the long vigil on the 
dock had tired her, and now she felt a drowsy luxury in 
the protection of Memling. 

He hated to waken her, but finally he must, and he 
woke her with the magic words : 

“Paris, Nellie ! We’re in Paris !” 

“My Gawd — or should I say — Moan Doo?” 

“They’re more apt to understand the former.” 

She primped in haste, yawning shamelessly, and stepped 
from the railroad carriages as if Paris were her very 
own. 

Memling gave the hand luggage to one of the swarm- 
ing porters, and went with Nellie to the customs officer 
at the station, where he speedily discovered that Nellie’s 
trunk had been shipped to Paris under a seal. With the 

286 


Mussoo De Voivang 

aid of Memling’s almost perfect French, the trunk was 
quickly passed, and carried out to a cab. 

“They got taxies here, too, haven’t they.?” said Nellie. 
“This is really quite a modem little boig.” 

The taxicab skated along boulevards lined with cafes, 
and nearly every cafe crowded. 

“They’re late upsitters, too, these Parisites,” said 
Nellie. 

As soon as the trunk was taken to her room at the 
hotel Memling had selected, she was all for venturing 
forth again. 

Refreshed by her sleep on the train, and stimulated 
by the ozone of Paris air, she had the mood of a summer 
dawn. And Memling, renewing his acquaintance with the 
Paris of his young art-student days, felt youth throbbing 
again in his arteries. 

He kept full stride with Nellie’s zestful pace, and the 
sidewalk cafe, which was such a joyous discovery to her, 
was a paradise regained to him. 


CHAPTER LIV 
MUSSOO DE VOIVANG 

S HE took an infantile delight in everything, every 
person, every trick of costume or manner. Her 
comments were like a child’s. 

“Say, Doik, the cops wear swords here, don’t they.? 
And I haven’t seen an Irish-looking one yet. They soive 
the beer with a saucer under the glass, see.? And you 
get a new saucer with every glass of beer, don’t you.? 

^87 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

And they stack them up, don’t they? You’re not supposed 
to take ’em home with you, are you?” 

The much-decorated women, drifting decoratively 
along the streets, interested her immensely. 

“I suppose those are demimondes traipsing up and 
down the bully vard.” 

“I suppose they are.” 

“Is that why you came over on another steamer from 
mine, so as to watch them go demimonding along?” 

“Nellie! You know I thought you would be here 
ahead of me.” 

“Well, maybe you did. But you got here foist, didn’t 
you? And you came right along on down to Paris instead 
of waiting for me at Choiboig, didn’t you?” 

All she wanted was to be a little jealous, and to be 
reassured. He did his best. 

“I had to arrange the business of the paintings and 
get our trunks and things that came over on the Mor- 
ganatic and our letter of credit that we left with the 
purser.” 

“The pictures, that’s so! Why haven’t you told me 
about them?” 

“Why haven’t you asked me?” 

“I haven’t had time, but I’m askin’ you now. How 
about it?” 

Memling looked around to note if he were in earshot 
or eyeshot of anybody. He could hear nothing but a 
jabber of French; he could see nobody who looked Anglo- 
Saxon. English seemed disguise enough. So he bent closer 
to Nellie, and told his story. 

“That old crook of a Max Strubel gave me a letter 
of introduction to his fellow crook in Paris — Bertrand de 
Vervins.” 


S88 


Mussoo De Voivang 


“Slip me that again, please.” 

“Bertrand de Vervins.” 

“Oh! I get you! Boitrong de Voivang I” 

“Exactly.” 

“Does he deal in pictures, too?” 

“Yes; he’s a crooked dealer who mixes up genuine and 
forgery till he can hardly tell where he stands himself. 
Well, I explained my great invention to him, and at first 
he was so very polite that I knew he wasn’t convinced at 
all. That made me mad, and I said: ‘Pas de ceremonies, 
monsieur,^ ” 

“Pa de Sarah who?” 

“I said: ‘No ceremonies, monsieur. I have invented 
the greatest scheme ever known for smuggling’ paintings 
into America without paying duty on them.’ He shrugged 
his shoulders: ‘So many people tell me that, and they 
are always being caught,’ he said, ‘and the pictures are 
taken away from them,’ he said. But I told him I had 
a new way. I told him that I had invented a marvelous 
method of painting another painting over another paint- 
ing so that later I could remove the other painting from 
the other painting without injuring the other paint- 
ing.” 

“But what becomes of the other painting?” Nellie 
queried sarcastically. “Are you talking ragtime? You’ve 
got so many ‘others’ I don’t know one other from t’other 
other.” 

“That’s what he said. But I said: ‘Look here. 
Monsieur de Vervins,’ I said. ‘You give me a valuable 
masterpiece of modern art, say, a canvas by Uzanne, or 
D%as, or Renoir,’ I said. ‘It is worth, say, a hundred 
thousand francs.’ ” 

much is that in Christian money?” 

289 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Memling tossed her the information impatiently : 
“Twenty thousand dollars.” 

“It must be a big picture to pull down that much 
cash!” Nellie mused. 

“Nonsense!” said Memling. “Meissonnier sold one of 
his pictures for fifty thousand dollars while he was alive, 
and Millet’s ‘Angelus’ was sold to America for over a 
hundred thousand dollars fourteen years after his death, 
and a year later it was bought back by a Frenchman 
for three-quarters of a million francs. The duty on that 
alone would have been — let me see — at fifteen per cent” — 
he figured on the marble-topped table — “it would have 
been twenty-two thousand five hundred dollars. And when 
Millet was young he was so poor that he couldn’t afford 
canvas, and he painted a new picture over an old one, 
just as I propose to do.” 

“Art is a good business when it’s good,” Nellie con- 
cluded. 

“That’s what I told that old fat cook of a Vervins. 
I explained to him that if he would give me a few paintings 
by modern masters, worth, say, a hundred thousand dol- 
lars, I could save him fifteen thousand dollars duty on 
them.” 

“Didn’t that put old Voivang into a poisperation 

“He sweat a little round the collar. But he cooled 
off with fright. ‘But, yes,’ he said, ‘but how do I assure 
myself,’ he said, ‘that when you have painted over them 
you have not ruined them?’ he said. ‘It would be small 
profit to save the fifteen-per-cent duty and destroy the 
one-hundred-per-cent painting,’ he said. I told him I 
would guarantee him against loss. He smiled very politely, 
and said: ‘Is it that monsieur would permit that I de- 
mand what securities he has?’ 

290 


Mussoo De Voivang 

“Well, of course, he had me there; so I said I would 
give him a demonstration. If he could lend me a painting 
I would paint another over it, and then remove the other 
painting, leaving the ” 

“Doik, if you say another ‘other,’ I’ll soitan’y have to 
moider you with one of these beer saucers.” 

“Well, he brought out an old canvas, a beautiful, time- 
mellowed masterpiece. I said : ‘It looks like a Rembrandt.’ 
He said : ‘It is a Rembrandt.’ I hated to risk destroying 
an old master — the new ones don’t count; they can paint 
more. Still, I didn’t want to show him I lacked con- 
fidence in my scheme, so I swallowed hard, and said care- 
lessly: ‘And if this should be ruined — ^not that it would 
or could, but if it should, how much would it cost.^’ I 
said. 

“ ‘Ten dollars,’ he said, or at least, he said, ‘Fifty 
francs.’ I gasped. ‘Fifty francs for a Rembrandt !’ 
He smiled. ‘The man who paints these for me would paint 
me a thousand at that rate.’ So I took the Rembrandt 
to the hotel, covered it with the layer of paint I have 
specially prepared, then daubed on a rough portrait.” 

“Who was the model?” Nellie put in hastily. 

“You were.” 

“But I was on that Joiman steamship.” 

“You were present in my heart,” Memling answered 
with a bow. 

“Paris is doin’ you good already,” Nellie beamed. 
“Keep right on.” 

“I painted a portrait of you, and showed it to old 
Vervins. He said: ‘You are a very poor painter, 
monsieur, but if you can remove what you put on, I shall 
do myself the honor of calling you a great artist.’ ” 

Nellie was furious. “He’s got a noive! Why didn’t 

291 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


you smack his fat face off for him?” she demanded. 
“Telling you you weren’t a great painter. Didn’t you 
.tell him you were a great sculptor?” 

“I wanted to, but I didn’t have the courage. I simply 
asked for another room to work in. He showed me into 
an empty studio, and I restored the Rembrandt in a 

jiiFy” 

“But what became of the portrait of me?” Nellie 
anxiously demanded. 

“Heaven knows ! Where are the snows of yesteryear ?” 

“You hadda rub me off the slate?” she pouted. 

“I had to. I hated it, but Vervins wanted to see his 
Rembrandt reappear. I knew he’d try to snoop and steal 
my secret, so I hung my hat over the keyhole, and 
worked away till every trace of my portrait of you was 
gone. I could have hung my hat on his eyeballs when 
I handed him back the canvas just as it was before. He 
expressed great admiration of the work, and tried to steal 
some of my bottles of mixture. I took them away from 
him politely, and then he tried to smell the sponges and 
brushes to see if he could not sniff the secret chemicals.” 

“The villain !” Nellie fumed. “Trying to steal from 

a — a ” She began to back pedal, but Memling smiled 

cynically. 

“That’s what I told him. ‘It is unprofessional to 
rob the profession,’ I said. Then he tried to buy the 
process, but I made a great mystery of it. I didn’t 
tell him it was all printed in the textbooks on restoring, 
and that I had simply developed a hint. I did tell him, 
however, that it would do him no good to know the 
method, because that was only part of the campaign. 
I explained that the disguised paintings had to be taken 
to America, and edged through the customhouse; only a 
292 


Mussoo De Voivang 


native American could do that, and I told him that I was 
planning to go back home as a painter returning from 
foreign studios and bringing with him his canvases. After 
I floated through the customs, I would unpaint what I had 
painted, and — voilal 

“Finally, he gave in. He decided to risk the canvases, 
and he promised me two or three good ones to work on 
as an experiment. But I stormed at him. ‘This experi- 
ment can only be worked once,’ I said, ‘and it must be 
done on a large scale or not at all.’ At last I browbeat 
him into promising me twenty-five of his best possessions, 
twenty-five of the most fashionable living artists’ chefs- 
d’oeuvre.” 

“Whyn’t you take some of those old masters.?* They 
bring fancy premiums.'^” 

“Yes, but there is no duty nowadays on foreign paint- 
ings over twenty years old. There is no encouragement 
to the skillful smuggler of the old masters. I’ve got to 
try the new. But some of them are all the rage, and 
their prices are sky high.” 

“How much do you think the bunch is woith.?*” 

Memling’s chest inflated a trifle as he tried to speak 
carelessly : 

“The cash value of the twenty-five he has promised 
me will total about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars ; 
fifteen-per-cent duty on that will be thirty-seven thousand 
five hundred dollars. And we divide the loot into three 
equal parts. It will net me twelve thousand five hundred 
dollars, for Strubel and Vervins pay the freight. Not 
bad, eh, Nellie, considering the fact that we get the trip 
to France thrown in.” 

“It’s supoib — simpluh supoib!” she gasped. “You 
soitan’y are the greatest genius I ever hoid of.” 

293 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

“We’ll get out of Paris and settle down in some quiet 
place where I can paint undisturbed.” 

“You needn’t hurry out of Paris on my account,” 
said Nellie. “It’s distoibin’, but I like it.” 

They looked about, and saw that the crowd had grad- 
ually dispersed, and that they were alone in the restau- 
rant, save for the hideously fatigued waiter, and the 
cashier asleep at the desk. 

A few people on early-morning errands moved drowsily 
about their tasks, but Paris, as Paris, was asleep. 

“Say,” said Nellie, “this place looks like Williamsboig 
on a Sunday night. I hope we’re not keeping anybody 
up.” 

“We’d better go home.” 

“But I thought Paris never slept,” Nellie complained. 

“Oh, Paris is turning respectable. It’s Berlin that 
is the naughty city nowadays. In Berlin people are just 
beginning their evenings out now.” 

“I wish we were in Boilin,” said Nellie, “for I feel 
all fussed up by what you’ve told me.” 

“To-morrow is another day,” Memling said, and gave 
the waiter a royal tip from his future earnings. 

They strolled out to the curb. Memling looked for 
a taxicab. 

“Let’s take one of those open-face, low-necked hacks,” 
said Nellie. “Maybe if we gave the driver a job, he’d 
buy the horse a coupla oats.” 

Memling assented, and they were soon rolling along 
the affable streets of after-midnight Paris. The city 
slumbered like a beautiful siren, reclining in the moon- 
light, and dreaming of raptures past and future. 

“There’s only one thing troubling me now,” said 
Memling. 


294 


In the Forest of Fontainebleau 

“What’s that, Doik? This hat I got on?” 

“Of course not. That art dealer said I was a bad 
painter. Those art dealers always say that of truly great 
painters at first. What if I should paint so much better 
than the men whose pictures I’m to disguise, that I should 
feel it my duty to art not to rub out my own pictures?” 

“Well, I should worry!” 


CHAPTER LV 

IN THE FOREST OF FONTAINEBLEAU 

I N the emerald depths of Fontainebleau Forest, Memling 
sat painting the portrait of an ancient oak, a verita- 
ble grand duke of a tree. Nellie was sitting on the turf, 
watching him. 

“How soon’ll it be my toin to pose?” she said. 

He mumbled through a mouthful of brush handles: 
“Lord, I wish you didn’t have to pose in that awful 
studio; if only you could pose out in the open air.” 

“You want to hand me a nice little case of pneumonia, 
so’s you’ll be free to marry somebody else, or floit with 
some of these French demonselles. I’m wise to your 
fiendish poipose, you Desprut Desmond.” 

“Hush!” said Memling. “You know I worship you, 
Nellie.” 

“Well, poissons that woishop other poissons have got 
a right to say so once in a while. You haven’t said a woid 
for thoity minutes.” 

“If you’d been trying as hard as I have to see just 
what that tree really looks like, and to express a dry, 

S95 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

mossy bark in smeary oil paint, you wouldn’t have 
much to say, either. That tree ought to be carved, not 
painted.” 

‘‘I suppose it is hard woik, but it looks lazy; just 
sitting there dabbling a little brush in some colored goo 
and flicking it on a canvas.” 

“Cracking rocks is nothing to it. The artist has to 
crack rocks inside his skull, and half the time he cracks 
his own head.” 

“The woist of it is, you’re woikin’ as hard as if it 
was to be poimanent, when you’re going to rub it all off 
as soon as you get to America. Why don’t you just slap 
on any old thing.?” 

“A true artist’s conscience nags the life out of him, 
Nellie. It would be dishonest to that noble old oak to 
fake his portrait. Besides, the painting must look real, 
or it would excite suspicion. And now, kindly shut up 
for half an hour, and then we’ll go to lunch.” 

Nellie was silent for what seemed a full hour to her, 
though the minute hand on Memling’s watch had made 
only ten steps. She sighed heavily under the burden of 
her thought: 

“I was thinking ” 

“Go right on thinking, but quit speaking, please.” 

“I was wondering what becomes of beautiful things 
like paintings and statues that get rubbed out or boined 
up or things like that. Seems like there’d ought to be 
some place to find ’em again.” 

“You’ll find them where Jenny Lind’s voice has gone, 

and the tears of Lady Jane Grey, and Oh, please 

hush your noise.” 

“I will, but I think it’s a pity you can’t presoive what 
you’re painting.” 


296 


In the Forest of Fontainebleau. 


“So do I, and it’s a pity you can’t let me alone long 
enough to paint it. Come on, we might as well eat.” 

She smiled contentedly. She was hungry, and she liked 
what they had to eat at Montigny. 

“Insult me as much as you like, Doik, as long as you 
end up with a dinner bell. A goil will forgive a lotta hard 
woids as long as a man feeds her good afterward.” 

They found their bicycles where they had laid them — 
for the bicycle is still popular round Fontainebleau — and 
went rolling out of the forest-cool into the sun-beaten 
roads that led across the levels and down the steep hill to 
the little village of Montigny on the tiny river Loing, 
whose name Nellie could never pronounce nearer than a 
Chinesy “ler-wang.” 

As Memling unslung his canvas from his back, he 
bowed to the old artist who lived at their little hotel, a 
genial patriarch who was so kindly of soul that Memling 
felt ashamed of himself for not admiring the veteran’s 
art as much as his heart. 

Nellie had quite fallen in love with him. Old Henri 
la Berthe — which Nellie called “Ornery lar Boit — knew 
a little English, and enjoyed trying to make Nellie under- 
stand it. He even enjoyed trying to comprehend her. 
It was a sort of game of chess. To-day he insisted on 
seeing Memling’s work, and it evoked his intense en- 
thusiasm. He poured forth a French rhapsody which 
Memling translated to Nellie in the crevices of the con- 
versation. 

“He says it’s wonderful — I’ve got the texture — better 
than Diaz, he says — no, not the Mexican — Diaz, the im- 
mortal painter — he says Diaz’ trees were too velvety — 
too plushy. But he says I ought to get the human note 
in — ^just a picture of a tree is not popular — ^he suggests 

297 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk 3Iemling 

a nymph or something — a dryad — or a Watteau shep- 
herdess — not a bad idea — fun to do, anyway.” 

Later, Memling talked it over with Nellie as they 
rowed a flat-bottomed boat on the flat-topped riverlet. 

“I don’t want to put any of those classic things in — 
or any dressed-up ladies — ^just a peasant girl or some- 
thing. Let’s go look through the village, and see if we 
can find a good-looking peasant girl.” 

“Let’s not,” said Nellie. “I thought I was brang over 
here to do any posing that was to be posed. And now 
you’re going gunning for French pheasants.” 

“But you’re not one, my dear. You haven’t the 
clothes, or the wooden shoes, or ” 

“There’s a wooden-shoe store here, and I bet any 
of these goils would sell all the duds oflp her back for 
a franc and a half. But o’ course, if you’d rather sit 
out there and paint one of these French beauts, go on — 
ally voo zong/* 

Memling seized her hand. He laughed, and blamed 
himself for a numskull. Of course she should pose. She 
should fit herself out with the costume, and lean against 
the tree. 

She paid dearly for her jealousy as day after day went 
by. He posed her leaning against his noble oak, with 
one foot held back against it. She was knitting; her 
hands were knitting; her eyes were turned away in some 
dim reverie. 

“Say, Doik, how much longer before I get a rest.?” 

“Oh, rest any time you say,” he snapped, flinging 
down the brush. “I was just trying to get that foot, 
and now you’ve moved it.” 

“It had went to sleep, and it tingles clear up behind 
my ears. How’d you like to stand here on one Trilby 

298 


In the Forest of Fontainebleau 

like a stork forever, and then some? And my back — 
whew! I think my shoulder blades are grafted into the 
bark.” 

As soon as she had shaken her foot awake, she re- 
sumed her pose, and he his work. But a moment later 
she was at him again: 

“Did you say you was painting my off hoof, Doik?” 

“No!” he snarled. “I said I was trying to.” 

“Well, say, would you mind slipping me a cigarette? 
I’m just thoisting to death for a puff. It won’t hoit 
the expression of the foot, will it?” 

He rose grimly, lighted a cigarette, and stuck it be- 
tween her teeth. Then he kissed her cheek roughly, and 
went back to his post. 

“If you speak again till I tell you to. I’ll hire another 
model — the prettiest one I can find.” 

A little later she wailed: “Say, Doik, can I move 
my left hand a minute? This smoke’s going up me nose, 
and I’m famished to sneeze.”, 

“Rest!” he growled. 

She strolled round behind him, and looked at the pic- 
ture. 

“It’s poifect, Doik! O’ course, it don’t look like me. 
If I met myself cornin’ up the street lookin’ like that, I’d 
never reco’nize myself.” 

“It’s not supposed to be a portrait.” 

“Oh, I’m not casting any aspoisions on the painting. 
If I looked as handsome as that I’d expect ’em to be 
namin’ cigars and theaters after me.” 

“You’re twice as beautiful as that.” 

“Oh, Doik, you do bloit out the most gorgeous com- 
pliments now and then when you’re not thinking.” She 
kissed his nose. 


299 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

‘‘Say, Doik, what’s she thinking of?’’ 

“The girl in the picture?” 

“Um-hum.” 

“How should I know?” 

“But she’s got such a wonderful expression, so wistful 
and wondering, and I don’t know what all.” 

“What were you thinking of?” 

“A cigarette, or you, or why we’re thieves instead of 
honest, and was it going to rain this afternoon, and how 
my old poiple skoirt would look if I hung a coupla 
paniers on it — and all sorts of things.” 

“Maybe that’s what she’s thinking of.” 

“No; she’s got one of those expressions you read 
about in novels, where the great artist paints a soul’s 
whole tragedy in one expression that haunts the beholder 
and tells him her life’s story.” 

Memling sniffed. “Great artists don’t try to do that 
sort of thing, Nellie. Novelists who know as much about 
art as I know about astronomy — and I can hardly tell 
the sun from the moon — fool novelists write that way; 
but great painters don’t paint that way. Great painters 
try to put on canvas what they see and feel, and in 
their own dialect. I don’t know what this girl is thinking 
about any more than the sculptor knew what the Venus 
of Melos was thinking about, or Leonardo knew what 
Mona Lisa was musing about. The main thing is to 
make the face and body look as if there were a soul alive 
in them.” 

Nellie went back to her attitude, and Memling assailed 
the canvas again. He had his days of triumph, when 
he cried: “I’ve got you now! I’m a better painter than 
I ever was sculptor.” And he had his days when he said: 
“If this canvas were mine, I’d throw it into the River 

300 


Mussoo Ornery 

Loing. But it’s got another man’s masterpiece under this 
daub of mine.” 

Still he would not give up, and one day he decided 
to call it finished, and stop before he ruined it with detail. 
That day he showed it to La Berthe, and the old man’s 
eyelids pursed with tears. He put his fingers to his lips, 
as if to extract a kiss from them, and threw the kiss to 
the little angel on the canvas. He poured out eulogies, 
which Memling condensed for Nellie: 

“He says it’s a masterpiece — it’s so immediate — nice 
word, eh.? — a beautiful moment fastened down like a but- 
terfly on a pin — ^nice, idea, eh.? He says I ought to send 
it to the Salon. I told him that I had no acquaintances — 
no pull; it would be rejected. He says it wouldn’t — but 
of course it would.” 

He and the artist exchanged rapid-fire chatter that 
evidently sent Memling into the seventh heaven of pride. 
Later he said to Nellie: 

“The old man’s a bad painter, but he’s a good judge 
of what other people do.” 

“Not knocking your own woik, at all,” Nellie had to 
say. But Memling was soaring too loftily to be brought 
down by any little shaft of irony. 


CHAPTER LVI 

MUSSOO ORNERY 

T he next morning he was up with the sun, for artists 
are Parsees by profession; they must serve in the 
temple of light while their god is there. By the time Nellie 
was awake, he had three expensive paintings, by two of the 

301 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

chief artists of France, and one Hungarian master, all 
blotted out under the first layer of paint. 

“I’ll give you a day off, Nellie. I’ve got to get out 
in the woods and find some more subjects. I can’t spend 
as much time on these as I did on the peasant girl, or 
I’ll never get those twenty -five canvases covered. You 
go for a row on the river; but first you might pack that 
peasant girl safely and put her away for the voyage. Be 
careful; she’s wet yet. Good-by.” 

Nellie watched him trundling his wheel up the sharp 
hill; then she went about various tasks, pausing to gaze 
at the peasant girl and growing more and more fascinated 
by the mystery of her meditations. 

A few hours later she went down to take out the boat. 
She found La Berthe just finishing his coffee at a table 
on the water’s very edge. 

“Why aren’t you woiking, mussoo.^*” she said. 

“Valking?” he said. “I am too fatigue to go valk- 
ing.” 

“No, not walking — woiking.” 

ne com — I am not under ze standing.” 

She gave up, and smiled. “Won’t you — voulez vous 
— come for a row on the eau — in the — the bateau?'^ He 
understood her vigorous pantomime, at least. 

Enchants!” he exclaimed, and she helped him in, 
expecting him to sit on the water any moment. But they 
embarked without accident, and a few stout strokes took 
her out of danger of the rush of water over the weir. 
Soon they were skimming the placid reaches of the ex- 
quisite stream, and by and by they just drifted. 

“Isn’t this the sweetest little immutation river that 
ever was.?” La Berthe knitted his gray brows. “Isn’t 
this — cela — the beauest petite rivare dong toot le mong.? 

302 


Mussoo Ornery 

O’ course, in America we’d think it was only a bathtub — 
a sally de bang — running over, but — you don’t get me? 
Well, you’re not losing much!” 

La Berthe felt that it would be easier to try to speak 
her language than to understand it, so he began: 

“Mees Nellee, all las’ night I am not sleep. I me 
remember Monsieur Memleeng his so sharmeeng painteeng. 
He did say to me: ‘No, no, I cannot make expose my 
painteeng to the Salon. I do not know nobody not at 
all. I have not the’ — how did he say.? — ‘the pool.’ Now 
me, I am not great painter like Monsieur Memleeng.” 

“Oh, Mussoo Ornery!” Nellie exclaimed. 

^^Treve de compliments, Mees Nellee. I have a nice 
talent, but not the grand talent. I know. But I have the 
grand talent for to make frands and to get vat you call 
the pool. To-morrow morneeng I go to Paris to take my 
painteengs for the Salon de I’Automne — the late Salon.” 

“Jer comprong, mussoo,” said Nellie. 

“I know averybody. If I say: ‘Here is painteeng 
by my frand, by my pupil, by my — it imports not,’ they 
say, ‘Good! Let us have the honneur to see it.’ And 
once they see the little paysanne who is so ravissante, 
they will give her their hommage and a place on the best 
wall.” 

“Pertater,” said Nellie dubiously. 

“Aoti, non, pas de peut-etres, mais incontestablement, 
sans aucun doute, sans aucun!^' 

“English, silver play!” Nellie gasped. The old man 
leaned close, and whispered as if he were transmitting 
a dark plot in a large crowd, instead of unfolding a 
benevolent scheme on a lonely river: 

“Mees Nellee, I am one grand conspirateur! Me, 
I love to comploter. I have the inspiration. Monsieur 

303 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Memleeng is afraid to send his so belle peinture to the 
Salon. You shall geeve it to me. I take it to the jury. 
Eef they say: ‘No, we do not wish,’ I bring back the 
peecture, and Monsieur Memleeng does not know his feeling 
is hurt. Eef they say: ‘Yes, we accept!’ then I bring 
back the triomphe!'* 

Nellie’s eyes and mouth widened with rapture at the 
conspiracy. She was so proud of Memling, and so zealous 
for his glory, that anything in his behalf was thrice wel- 
come. 

“Oh, that’s poifectly supoib!” she gasped. 

“Aha, you like, yes.?^” beamed the old schemer. 

“Like!” said Nellie. “I love it, and I could hug you 
for thinking of it.” 

“Please!” was all La Berthe could say, as he leaned 
forward. And Nellie, leaning forward, took his snowy 
head in her hands, and kissed his pink old face. 

Nellie rowed back to the little hotel, got the 
painting from its hiding place, and relinquished it to La 
Berthe. 

Memling came back for a hasty luncheon. If his mind 
had not been absent on thoughts of future paintings, he 
would have observed with suspicion the curious behavior of 
La Berthe and Nellie. They were as restless as children 
trying to keep from giggling in church. 

La Berthe said his farewells to Memling, and explained 
that business took him to Paris for a few days. Memling 
bade him an affectionate au revoir, and wheeled back to 
the woods. 

Nellie fairly effervesced with hope, and her only dread 
was that Memling would insist on seeing his painting. 
A few times he asked her for it, but she managed to 
shunt him to another switch of thought. 

304 


Mussoo Ornery 


Finally, the great day came when a telegram from 
Paris reached Nellie. 

“Who’s telegraphing you from Paris?” Memling 
asked anxiously. 

“Oh, a soitain party I been carrying on a little floita- 
tion with.” 

While Memling stared at her aghast, she read the 
message : 

Jury honors theirself by to accepted Monsieur Memling 
so charming painting. Make him the compliments. I embrace 
your hands. La Berthe. 

While Nellie was reading, her face underwent so swift 
a suffusion of crimson delight that Memling flashed pale 
with jealousy. He snatched the telegram from her, and 
read the signature first : 

“Old La Berthe, eh? He kisses your hands, eh? The 
old scoundrel !” Then his eyes took in the rest, but it was 
Greek to him. Nellie explained it in a roundabout way 
that drove him frantic. When at last he understood, she 
got herself ready to hear a shout of celebration from 
him; and she made ready the meek answers to his pro- 
found expressions of gratitude to her. Instead, she saw 
him drop into a chair, the telegram drifting to the floor 
like Verlaine’s autumn leaf. She thought that he was 
about to have apoplexy over the good news. But he said: 

“Nellie, you meant well, but — Jumping Jupiter, how 
you have put the fat in the fire!” 

“How have I?” she pouted. 

“Don’t you realize that under my miserable daub 

“It’s not a miserable daub ; it’s a shay-doiver.” 

“Well, whatever it is, it is resting on a thirty-thousand- 

305 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

dollar painting by the great Uzanne. And it’s got to 
come off.” 

“Well, take it off.” Nellie was snippy with the bank- 
ruptcy of her great expectations. 

“But how can 1 ? It’s accepted now. It won’t be 
exhibited for three or four weeks, and it’s got to hang 
there for three months! And somebody might want to 
buy it for a few hundred dollars. And we’re supposed 
to start back to America soon. Oh, Lord I oh. Lord I” 

Nellie was so steeped in France by now that her own 
despair was voiced in the tragic wail of : 

“Moan Doo! Moan Doo! Keskersay ker jay fay!” 

CHAPTER LVII 
THE IRONY OF FAME 

M emling was in despair over the success of his 
painting, since to recall it would rouse suspicion 
and inquiry. Memling could not afford to set the faintest 
match of suspicion to the fuse of inquiry. Besides, he 
had a gnawing curiosity to know what the critics would 
say of his work. 

He did not dare, however, to tell the owner of the 
under-picture what had happened to it. But De Vervins 
found it out. As soon as the Salon was opened the critics 
fell foul of Memling’s painting. It was original in 
handling, completely personal, full of observations that 
critics had not learned to make for themselves; so they 
hammered it hard. 

Nellie was for moidering the critics one after another, 
but Memling rhapsodized: “It reminds me of the way 
they lambasted all the great innovators. Millet and Manet 

306 


The Irony of Fame 


and Monet — we M’s seem to get it, don’t we? Just so 
the critics ridiculed painters who painted horses as they 
really ran instead of the way painters had painted them? 
Then along came the instantaneous photograph and 
showed the truth. And now the critics won’t endure a 
man who lacks the camera eye. It was the same way 
with Monet’s full sunlight. The critics could not make 
head or tail of his fierce ambition to set his canvases ablaze 
with noon. And now that they are used to him, they 
can’t tolerate old-fashioned light and shade. It’s the same 
way with me. You remember how I struggled to see 
what I really saw, and then to nail it to the canvas without 
previous prejudices. The critics can’t understand it. They 
don’t remember how sunlight really would look in such 
a place. So they give me the broad-axe. But it only 
proves I’m a real painter, a seer, a faithful reporter. 
Nellie, I’ll have to plead guilty to being a great genius.” 

Nellie was used to these moods. She merely an- 
swered : 

‘‘Help yourself to the molasses, Doik!” 

The bludgeons of the critics gave Memling a sort of 
perverse encouragement. But they also brought down 
on his head the wrath of the owner of the canvas. De 
Vervins read the criticisms. Memling’s name caught his 
eye. With him to think was to suspect. 

He hurried to the Salon, found Memling’s exhibit and 
stood pondering it. The peasant leaning against the 
tree did not interest him. But the size of the canvas 
did. It reminded him of the dimensions of his Uzanne. 

He hoped that it was not his beloved Uzanne, which 
he had relectantly entrusted to Memling. But the size 
of it! While he was stewing over the problem, Uzanne 
himself strolled up and, with unwitting generosity, praised 

307 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

this new man, Memling, to the skies, advised De Vervins 
to buy the painting and make a fashion of Memling as 
he had of so many other path-finders in art. 

Something about the sarcasm of this situation con- 
vinced De Vervins. He sent Memling a telegram to come 
to Paris at once, and when Memling reached there, asked 
him politely if by any chance his painting could be one 
of the overlays. Memling confessed that it was. With 
confirmed trepidation, De Vervins asked if the hidden work 
might be a Uzanne. Memling confessed that his painting 
was indeed superimposed on a Uzanne, and De Vervins 
proceeded to have hysterics. 

Memling never mentioned Nellie’s part in the affair, 
but took the blame on himself. Realizing the weakness 
of apologies in such a case, he fought fire with fire, and 
defied the lightning. Now, De Vervins grew pathetic. 

‘‘What am I to do.^^” he whined. “The painting cost 
me thousands of francs; it should bring me in America 
better than a hundred thousand francs; and now it must 
perish under your miserable, imbecile, detestable daub. 
Worse yet, I hear that the French government wishes to 
buy your painting for the Luxembourg gallery, and will 
offer you a thousand francs for it.” 

Memling almost expired at the compliment. 

“The French government.? — the Luxembourg? — im- 
mortality! — Oh, sell it to them by all means!” 

De Vervins squealed like a pig under a gate: 

“And my hundred thousand francs! Who pays me 
those? And Uzanne! Who explains to him what has 
become of his painting when he asks ? He goes to America 
himself next year. He expects this painting to be a 
missionary. He will wish to see it. Shall I tell him it 
is hanging in the Luxembourg under that atrocious crust 

308 


The Parish Policeman Makes an Arrest 

of yours? Uzanne is a fighter; when he is angry he 
demands a duel. Will you fight him?” 

“No,” said Memling, “I could not kill a man who has 
taste enough to praise my work. But, of course, I really 
ought not to disappoint the French government. If it 
wishes my painting, it ought to have it.” 

“Name of a name of a name!” De Vervins broke out 
with frightful profanity. 

But Memling only smiled: 

“Don’t worry. It will all turn out for the best.” 

And he left De Vervins clutching his skull as if he 
were trying to unscrew it from his spine. 


CHAPTER LVIII 

THE PARISH POLICEMAN MAKES AN ARREST 

M emling chuckled all the way back to Montigny, 
and a nervous pottery-maker in the compartment 
with him was convinced that he was a lunatic. Memling 
told it all to Nellie and revelled in the misery of De 
Vervins. He had a misery of his own, for the temptation 
to get into the Luxembourg was almost more than he 
could resist. 

Nevertheless, he took pains that his other canvases 
should not be such as to tempt Nellie or La Berthe to 
exhibit them. He painted studies of casts, unfinished 
landscapes, still life, fruits and silver, copper utensils 
from the kitchen of the hotel, and life studies from 
Nellie. 

When he tired of work, he and Nellie walked far and 
wide. It was a joy to be in a world where all was inno- 

309 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

cence and beauty, where temptation was asleep, and re- 
morse forgotten, and where the police were not to be 
feared. 

The police were — or the policeman was — an unending 
joke to Nellie. His cocked hat and his sword amused 
her deliciously. She called him “the village constabill.” 

But one day she did not smile at him. She and Mem- 
ling were returning from a long stroll in the forest. It 
had awed them like a huge cathedral, humbled and exalted 
them at once. 

Coming back along the village street they stepped 
aside to let the policeman pass, but less for his own 
glory than for the sake of what followed him. He 
headed a little wedding procession, a village dignitary or 
two in evening dress, a young soldier or two in uniform, 
the bride in veil and flowers, her mother, the bridegroom’s 
mother and a few relatives. 

The procession moved solemnly along toward the little 
church, trying not to show how foolishly happy it felt. 

Memling smiled : “It takes a policeman to get them to 
the altar here.” 

Nellie did not smile. She spoke in a strange deep 
tone: “Don’t joke about marriage, Doik. If there’s 
any laugh cornin’, that cute little bride’s got it on me.” 

Memling stared at her with a bewildered query. She 
turned away her eyes — guilty with sudden tears. He felt 
something stir in a dusty corner of his heart — the attic of 
his heart where he had stored dusty ideals of honor and 
respectability and duty and other old-fashioned furniture. 

“I’ve been a brute and a scoundrel to you, Nellie,” 
he murmured. “But if you’ll take me. I’ll make you my 
wdfe this minute.” 

“Oh, no, thank you!” Nellie laughed, but there was 

310 


The Sun-burnt Nymph 

a snap in her laughter and she hurried away to the inn. 
Memling started after her, then let her go and set off 
in the opposite direction. 

Before he returned he had fathomed the mysteries 
of French marriage laws; he had learned that an Ameri- 
can can be wed only after a deal of red tape is unrolled, 
but he started the spool to rolling. 

By the time the formalities were completed, he had 
persuaded Nellie that he wanted her for his wife because 
he loved her and not because he owed her the rite. He 
had to woo her and win her and she was not an easy 
conquest. 

But when she yielded and they were legally linked in 
holy matrimony she was as shyly, sweetly foolish as any 
peasant bride in France, and Dirk himself was feeling as 
solemn as a cure. 

It only remained now to finish a canvas or two and 
return to America. 


CHAPTER LIX 
THE SUN-BURNT NYMPH 

I N her new guise of wife, Memling found a new beauty 
in Nellie, a new look in her eyes. He determined to 
portray her beauty on his last canvas. He tried her in 
various poses. 

One of these was a nymph, a snowy white nymph 
deploying her length along the bank of a stream. The 
river Loing posed for the stream out of doors, but Nellie 
posed for the nymph in the studio that Memling had 
sublet, and an old tapestry represented the mossy bank. 

311 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Nellie was restless, as usual, but this time it was 
because she was suffering from the effects of unwonted 
exercise in the sun. She had rowed a boat on the river 
Loing, and drifted about on its glowing surface with 
sleeves rolled high and throat open. In consequence, her 
tender skin was baked a painful brown. This moved her 
to say: 

“Those fresh air nymphs you always see lolling round 
these paintings have always got skins like the after-taking 
ads of a beauty parlor. But if those dames really stayed 
out in the sun and rain all summer, they’d have skins 
like a punkin pie. Here I been rowing around that toy 
river a few days and my arms and neck are so sunboined 
I look as if I had Indian blood breakin’ out on me in 
spots. If a nymph lived outdoors all her life, she’d be 
cooked to a toin. And she’d have big feet and hands, 
and her hair full of burrs, for what would she comb it 
with? I wonder some of these artists don’t get wise 
and do a real nymph!” 

“That’s a great idea, Nellie, you shall be a real nymph, 
and the tint of your neck and forearms shall be your 
general color scheme.” 

“All right, Doik, and it’ll be as good as a soimon to 
some of these near-artists.” 

Her enthusiasm flickered before Memling’s next idea: 

“Another thing, Nellie, it’s hopeless to get real open 
air effects in a stuffy studio like this. We’ll find some 
hidden nook in the Forest, and you can pose there.” 

“Not while I got my health and strength enough to 
resist,” Nellie averred. “Ump-ummI Doik — a coupla 
ump-umms !” 

Memling pleaded: “But it’s all for the sake of art 
and truth and reality, and 


312 


The Sun-burnt Nymph 


“Those things never got me anything. And all they’d 
get me outdoors would be being arrested by a French 
John Darm.” 

“There wouldn’t be the slightest danger of that.” 

“Suppose somebody comes along.” 

“The Forest is practically deserted in the morning, 
and we’ll find a secluded spot, and to make assurance 
doubly sure, we’ll take along a scout to warn us.” 

“Just as much obliged, but no, thank you!” 

“All right,” Memling sulked, “if you don’t want to 
help me. I feel that I could do something great, some- 
thing epoch-making.” 

“In that case o’ course,” she quoted as she surrendered, 
“in the woids of Joshua Whitcomb Riley: ‘I got nothin’ 
at all to say, my daughter, nothin’ at all to say.’ ” 

It was a bright morning in August, and three solitary 
horsemen on bicycles might have been seen threading the 
loneliest, grassiest roads of the great thicket of Fontaine- 
bleau. One of the horsemen was a woman. They sought 
one of those characteristic Fontainebleau spots, a sort of 
reversed oasis, a patch of desert in the green woods, 
where outcropping boulders seemed to be flung and heaped 
like a giant child’s neglected playthings. It was a kind 
of cave turned inside out and drenched with sunlight. 

There was only one path of approach, and Memling 
stationed the scout there at a safe distance, where he 
could be seen and heard without seeing. He was in- 
structed to keep his distance unless he had news of an 
invader. His promised wage was large enough to act 
as an antiseptic to any curiosity he might have had. 

While Nellie was timorously making ready, Memling 
was setting up his easel. The canvas was especially large. 
Before Memling had received it on trust, it had revealed 

313 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

a scene in a cafe by Theophile Tonty. Memling hated 
the canvas; he hated all of Tonty’s work. It was to him 
an anarchy of drawing and a chaos of color, an affecta- 
tion of eccentricity in place of individuality. But Tonty 
had the public at his feet, and his mannerisms and pre- 
tenses were hailed as genuine. And the value of this 
canvas was fifteen thousand dollars. 

Memling had not intended to spend much time on the 
concealment of this picture, but Nellie had kindled a 
desire to paint a realistic nymph in a real glare of sun. 

He soon had Nellie instructed in the pose he had de- 
cided upon, a graceful reclining attitude among great 
boulders, with the face full of vague animal wonder. 

The pose was one of infinite grace ; part of her beauti- 
ful figure was heavily shadowed by the overarching rocks ; 
part of it was gilded with glowing sunlight. There was a 
minimum of drapery. 

Nellie found her resting place on the rocks anything 
but pleasant to her soft body. And terror of discovery 
was added to discomfort of flesh. It was for that reason 
she grew petulant with Memling: 

“Leave me here a while longer and I’ll be the color 
of my nose all over.” 

“Be quiet a little longer, and you’ll be the living 
original of a masterpiece.” 

“If I live. If anybody was to come this way. Heaven 
presoive me, that’s all,” Nellie fretted, twisting this way 
and that to keep watch. 

“Oh, don’t worry,” Memling answered carelessly. 

“You don’t have to worry,” said Nellie, “but look at 
me; that is, you needn't look at me; but just look at me.” 

“You are looking your very best.” 

“This is no time for idle comp’ments, Doik. What I 

314 


The Sun-burnt Nymph 

want to know is what happens to me if anybody comes 
along ?” 

“Nobody’s coming along, in the first place, and in 
the second, if anybody does come along, we have the 
scout on the watch to warn us.” 

“But when the scout comes along to warn us, what 
about the scout 

“Oh, I’ll manage somehow. Don’t fret!” 

“Oh, I’ll manage somehow. Don’t fret!” Nellie re- 
peated, like a sullen echo. “The woist of it is, I oined my 
punishment by talking too much.” 

“That’s true, Nellie, and I give you credit for sug- 
gesting a wonderful idea. I’m trying to carry it out now, 
and it will give immortal fame to both of us.” 

“Immortal for about fifteen minutes !” Nellie sniffed, 
“and fame that nobody will know of but ourselves ! 
What’s the use of that confidential fame?” 

Memling sighed so deeply that Nellie regretted her 
temper. She was usually battling fiercely to ward off 
from him any discouragement, but now she was heaping 
it upon him. 

“Forgive me for that outboist, Doik,” she pleaded 
tenderly. “It’s not you I’m abusing; it’s the things that 
weight you down like a coisse. I want you to be what 
you desoive to be, the famousest artist in the woild; and 
here you are squanderin’ your genius on paintings that 
have to be rubbed off as soon as you get to America. 
Everything you do seems to put you deeper in the mire. 
You got a brain that’s a poifect wonder, but you’re 
exoitin’ it only to cover yourself up deeper and darker 
and drag you foither and foither down. It’s like a man 
diggin’ his own grave. He may be a fine ditch digger, 
and he may trim it off as neat as can be, but, after all, 

315 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

he’s digging his own grave. And the better he does it, 
the woisse it is.” 

Memling put down his paint brushes and palette 
solemnly, and took his knee into his hands. Ordinarily, 
he was petulant when Nellie interrupted the silence of 
his work with her chatter. But what she said now hurt 
him beyond peevishness. 

“You’re right, Nellie. We must get out of this rut. 
We’re on the wrong road. If we can only carry this 
scheme through, we’ll turn honest and upright. And 
we’ll have money enough to afford it.” 

“That’s what you always say, Doik. And it never 
woiks out. Either we don’t get the cash we thought we 
would, or we spend it on a sploige, or lose it somehow. 
Thieves’ money seems to have more wings than honest 
money.” 

“I’m not so sure,” said Memling. “My money flew 
away just the same when I earned it honestly. The main 
difference is that our office hours have to be so irregular. 
And then, modern business seems to depend so heavily on 
advertising, and thieves don’t dare advertise.” 

“Don’t you believe it! I’ve read plenty of thieves’ 
advoitisements,” Nellie insisted. 

“Oh, mining stocks, and patent medicines and games 
of that sort. But even those are having their field nar- 
rowed more and more. Some day we might try how 
much we could steal in a big advertising campaign.” 

He had relieved his gloom by his favorite method of 
talking it away, and now he picked up his brush and 
palette once more. 

“Meanwhile, let’s clean up the harvest we’ve sown 
here. The job is almost finished. We ought to have 
sailed for America last week. Max Strubel is getting 

S16 


Ignominious Flight 

anxious, and De Vervins is growing so polite I’m sure 
he’ll insult me in a few days.” 

A shrill whistle broke up the quarrel. The scout had 
scented a wanderer. Nellie was frozen for a moment 
into such a statue as Diana must have made when she 
saw that Actaeon saw her in swimming. The scout came 
rushing up with his warning, bringing it in person. 


CHAPTER LX 
IGNOMINIOUS FLIGHT 

N ellie was angry enough to have turned the rash 
youth into a stag for his hounds to tear to pieces ; 
but in the first place, she lacked the goddess-like power, 
if not the goddess-like beauty; and in the second, there 
were no hounds to tear him to pieces. 

She rolled awkwardly off her rock, and crawled on 
all fours into a sort of cave, calling to Memling: 

“Hoil a rock at that infoinal cub!” 

The youth came crashing through the shrubbery, 
gasping: 

Attention, m^sieu*; prenez garde, m’sicul'* 

^^Prenez garde yourself,” shouted Memling. “Get out ! 
Eloignez-vous, decampez, scootez-vous to the diableP^ 
Memling could only stop his advance by running to 
meet him half way. He seized him and shook him and 
how-dare-you’d him. He shook out of him the informa- 
tion that strangers were wandering that way. Memling 
peered from the rock and saw, indeed, a family saunter- 
ing merrily forward. To his horror, he saw that they 
carried lunch-baskets. 


317 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

He ran to tell Nellie, who gave him one look. It 
had all the reproach and profanity and wrath in the 
world. If that look could have been spelled, it would have 
to be printed with a dash. 

Memling shriveled before it, then ran, gathered her 
things together, shoved them into the lair where she had 
retreated and, clutching up easel and canvas, fled him- 
self with much scattering of brushes. 

Straight to the open-air studio climbed the family, 
a family of small shopkeepers out for a day of fresh air. 
They sat down where the easel had been and spread out 
a cloth for luncheon. The children showed a desire to 
explore, and were just making their way to Nellie’s hiding 
place when the mother announced that the feast was 
ready. 

Nellie grew desperate with delay. The cranny into 
which she had glided w^as so small that she could not sit 
up straight in it. But she grimly set to work to get 
back into her things and make ready for escape. The 
frequent collisions of her skull with the low roof did not 
improv^ her temper. 

Just about the time the family finished lunch and the 
good man of the family spread a handkerchief over his 
face and prepared for a nap, Nellie was ready to crawl 
out. The children discovered her and stared in terror. 
She put her finger to her lips and hypnotized them for 
the time being into silence. 

Memling stole from his adjoining cavern and fol- 
lowed, lugging his big canvas, the stool, brushes and 
color-box. He began to apologize, but Nellie slashed 
him with a look like a broadsword. They went back to 
the hotel in silence. 

It was not till after luncheon that she showed a sign 

318 


The Miracle 

of ever speaking to him again. Then she suddenly ex- 
ploded into laughter: 

“It’s a good thing I loined to dress in a lower boith 
on a sleepin’ car!” 

Memling began to laugh with relief. She turned on 
him: 

“How dare you laugh 1 How dare you 1” 

He sobered instantly. She frowned a while. Then 
she began anew to giggle, to cacchinate, to shriek, and 
this ended in a good cry. 

Memling was so afraid of her that he would not 
venture to ask her to resume the sittings. He just sat 
about, looking mournful and casting sad glances toward 
the neglected canvas. 

At last, on the second day, Nellie said: 

“Say, Doik, when you going to begin woik on the 
nymph again?” 

“The minute you say the word,” he gasped. 

“All right. Come along.” 


CHAPTER LXI 
THE MIRACLE 

S O they returned to the unwalled studio. Only this 
time Memling stole a number of signs from various 
parts of the forest, signs forbidding people to pass, “path 
closed” signs, and even one that warned the wayfarers 
against explosives. 

He set these up round about the retreat, and they 
were not interrupted again. 

As Memling worked, he fell into his stride anew, and 

319 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

fell more and more in love with his subject. He was 
given insight into the dazzling reality of the sun-flow, 
the deep riches of the shadows; given power to transfer 
them to canvas, and courage to refuse to see with academic 
eyes. 

For days he toiled while Nellie labored almost equally 
hard to keep immobile, and yet to look alive; for the 
model must collaborate with the artist, or the work will 
lack soul. 

Memling’s life-long training and feeling for sculpture 
inspired him to endow the body of the nymph with melody 
of line, and the roundness, the solidity of reality. His 
new passion for light and color fired him to constant 
discoveries, novel mixtures of tint and truths of value. 
He was unhampered and unafraid. 

He spent days at it for every hour he had meant 
to spend. And when it was done he looked on his work 
with shameless pride. As a piece of craftsmanship, the 
canvas was already a classic ; as a document in mythology, 
it was as epoch-making as Millet’s peasants. Millet 
painted the poor as they really looked. Memling estab- 
lished the nymph as she must have been if she had ever 
been, blistered with sun and wind and rain, unclothed, 
unkempt and savage, yet strangely, wildly beautiful. 

“It’s a miracle, Nellie ! I’ve got it ! It’s great, that’s 
all, it’s great!” 

“He admits it himself,” said Nellie. Then she went 
to the canvas, stared at it and adored it. It had not only 
technical bravura that the artist would admire, but the 
winsome charm that appeals to the common people. 

Nellie gazed, and a tear rolled out of each eye. Mem- 
ling stared at her: 

“Why the tears.? Is it so disappointing.?” 

320 


James G, Tice, L. C, B. B. M. 

“It’s so beautiful it makes me want to cry. And then 
when I think that you’re going to wash it all off, I get 
so choined up I want to scream. Oh, you can’t destroy 
that, Doik!” 

Memling’s eyes filmed with dark revolt as he muttered : 

“But underneath it is a Tonty worth fifteen thousand 
dollars.” 

“Your nymph is woith a dozen Tonties. Couldn’t we 
poichase the Tonty and just leave it lay.?” 

“How much can you contribute toward the price.?” 

“About thoity cents.” 

“I’m afraid the nymph will have to go.” 

“Sumpum tells me you’ll never destroy her, Doik.” 

His brows writhed and his teeth set hard as he mur- 
mured : 

“The same something tells me the same thing.” 


CHAPTER LXH 

JAMES G. TICE, L. C. B. B. M. 

T his time Memling and Nellie made the same steamer. 

They were not entirely glad to be bound home- 
ward. Artists acquire a secondary patriotism, and it is 
usually to France. Memling and Nellie had the normal 
amount of Fourth of July in their blood, but America 
meant danger to them. It meant that they walked among 
snares. 

Memling’s past crimes had gone undetected, but he 
was sure that they were not forgotten by their victims. 
Detectives were doubtless still looking alive to some of 
them, and every comer that was turned, every ring of 
321 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

a doorbell might mean the arrival of some vengeance in 
uniform. 

Furthermore, Memling, who was such a believer in 
personality in art, could not but realize that crime has 
also its personality. Every law-breaker leaves his auto- 
graph somewhere, and the multiplication of crimes is the 
subtraction of alternatives. Gradually the possibilities 
narrow down, and cancellation brings the detectives closer 
to the one mind that could have carried out all these 
similar schemes. 

So Memling grew haggard at the thought of landing 
in America. For all he knew, half a dozen detectives 
would be waiting to battle for him. It is times like these 
that try the criminal’s soul and tempt him to be disloyal 
to his profession. 

Memling did not dread the ordeal of passing through 
the customhouse with his paintings. That would be a 
jovial adventure. He could pose as an artist, for he was 
an artist. His pictures must be accepted as the work of 
an artist, for he was deeply satisfied that they were the 
highest of art. But during his absence in France, what 
might have been brewing he could not know. 

The ever-hovering fear of a thief is that some con- 
federate may turn stool-pigeon to buy mercy from the 
police for other crimes. Some of Memling’s fellows would 
some day surely do the same; perhaps Gold-tooth Lesher 
had already betrayed him. But that was for the future. 
Thinking could not find it out. The future alone could 
unveil itself. 

Meanwhile, the sea-air was glorious ; the voyage was 
smooth and the deck slid across the ocean like a huge 
flat car. At table they were seated with half a dozen 
assorted Americans. Some of these were of the pushing 


James G, Tice, L, C, B, B. M, 

sort; one of them particularly, an aggressive bigot who 
made patriotism odious. 

He informed everybody that his name was Tice. 

“James G. Tice of Sent Paul, Minn. I’m not one of 
your measly double L Ds or Ph. Ds, but I wear the title 
of L. C. B. B. M.” 

You were expected to ask what all that might mean, 
whereupon he would wag his head and answer with a sly 
smile : 

“That’s a title that fools ’em all. L. C. B. B. M. ! 
I’ve had college professors with the headache over that. 
It means Largest Canner of Baked Beans in Minnesota. 
See? L. C. B. B. M. — ^Largest Canner of Baked Beans 
in Minnesota. That’s me. Fact is, I pack more baked 
beans than any other two in the whole State put together. 
But that makes the title a little too long. Pretty good, 
eh? When I meet any of these long-horned college men 
with their A. M.s and P. M.s and M. D.s and D. D.s, 
I spring that on ’em. Never found anybody who could 
guess it yet.” 

At the first meal aboard, Mr. Tice had introduced 
himself to the first comer at the table; also he introduced 
himself to the second comer; then he introduced the other 
two to each other. He nominated himself chairman and 
elected himself unanimously. 

Memling and Nellie had expected to meet no one. 
They had tried to get a table for two, but arrived at 
the chief steward’s altar too late. Mr. Tice introduced 
himself to them, and then had the effrontery to introduce 
them to the others. The others looked sheepish, but once 
the job was done everybody assumed to know every- 
body. 

Tice winked at the others and tossed Memling his card. 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Memling glanced at it and thanked him. Tice waited a 
moment, then asked: 

“Did you get on to the title?” 

Memling glanced at the card again, and said: 

“Ah, yes,” and resumed his conversation with Nellie. 

Tice fidgeted, and when he could endure the indiffer- 
ence no longer, insinuated: 

“Ever know anybody with that title before?” 

“No,” said Memling, and returned to Nellie. 

“I bet you can’t guess what the title means,” Tice 
urged, growing frantic. 

“I bet I couldn’t either,” said Memling. 

Tice was a trifle beady about the brow. He would 
not have his life-joke ignored. So he nudged Memling, 
asked himself the question and answered it. 

“Very ingenious,” Memling tossed over his shoulder. 
Tice would not be dismissed: 

“It’s true, too. Have you ever been to Minnesota? 
No? Never seen Sent Paul? The idea? And you com- 
ing back from Europe! I tell you a man’s got no right 
to go traipsing over foreign countries till he’s seen his 
own.” 

“No.?^” said Memling. 

“I’m one of those See America First fellows. Europe’s 
got the ruins, but we’ve got the men. There’s people 
that go punting on the Thames every year that don’t 
know whether the Mississippi is a river or a lake.” 

“Which is it?” said Memling with malicious ignor- 
ance. 

“The Thames!” said Tice, fairly expectorating the 
“T.” “The Thames ! Why, you could pour ten Thameses 
in the Mississippi and not raise a ripple. And you could 
lose the Rhine and the Rhone and the Rhene and the 

324 


James G. Tice, L. C. B, B. M. 

Rhune and never find ’em. The Mississippi starts, you 
know, just a little above our city. Yes, you might say 
the river gets its first real start at Sent Paul. Ever seen 
Sent Anthony’s Falls.? No.? They belong to Minneapolis, 
of course, but they’re very pretty in spite of that ! You’ve 
never seen Sent Anthony’s Falls.? It’s a shame!” 

“I’ve seen many of his temptations,” Memling said, 
“but I always understood that he didn’t have any falls.” 

“Don’t you believe it,” said Mr. Tice. “They run 
the biggest flour mills in the world.” 

“He must have been a saint when his very lapses do 
such noble work,” said Memling. 

Mr. Tice had just returned from his first hasty view 
of the old world and he did not like it. 

“Europe is the biggest con game in the world,” he 
proclaimed. “Nothing but a sideshow. Everybody’s out 
for the American dollar. Everybody’s got his hand out 
for tips.” 

“Don’t they give tips in Saint Paul?” said Memling. 

“Well, of course, they do ! Do you think we’re in 
the backwoods? We’ve got some of the finest hotels in 
the world there in Sent Paul. Of course we tip. What 
do you think we are?” 

But inconsistencies never annoy so energetic and forth- 
right a soul as Tice’s. Memling did not attempt to point 
out any of the large industrial achievements, the mechani- 
cal and commercial and scientific accomplishments of 
Europe. He was afraid to answer any of Tice’s argu- 
ments for fear he would bring down more of them. 

Another member of the round table, however, was a 
Mr. Brundage, who was the exact opposite and opponent 
of Tice. Mr. Brundage had lived abroad for a few years, 
zealously endeavoring to conceal or atone for his American 

325 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

birth. He was as unfair to America as Tice to Europe. 
They wrangled all the way across the ocean. They were 
equally fallacious and emphatic in defense and assault. 
Memling wanted to knock their heads together. 

Nellie acquired a special hatred for Tice. She said 
to Memling one day, as they sat tucked up in their deck 
chairs : 

“That Tice hasn’t got brains enough in his head to 
make a koinel for a peanut. I’m goin’ to advise him to 
take his own bean and bake it — and can it.” 

“Let him alone,” said Memling, “or he’ll ask you if 
you know what his title means.” 

“He’s been trying for days to woim out of you what 
your business is. Whyn’t you tell him you’re the smallest 
eater of baked beans in the univoise.^” 

“Shh!” said Memling, “speak of the devil and you 
sniff sulphur.” 


CHAPTER LXIII 

THE TENACIOUS CUSTOMER 

A long came Tice, who was doing the deck trot as 
if he were ploughing a furrow. Seeing Memling 
and Nellie, he stopped at their feet, and, without invita- 
tion, sat down on the end of Memling’s steamer chair. 
Memling would gladly have kicked him over the rail, but 
his feet were bundled up in the blanket. 

Tice was evidently laboring under an anxiety. It 
came out soon. He could no longer tolerate his ignorance 
of Memling’s business. He began with conspicuous care- 
lessness : 


826 


The Tenacious Customer 


“Does your business take you to Europe often, Mr. 
Memling?” 

“Not often,” said Memling. 

“Been away long.?” 

“Not very.” 

“Glad to get back?” 

“Not especially.” 

“What do you think of the outlook for fall trade?” 

“Not much.” 

“Beans have been rather hard and slow, too. Any 
signs of a pick-up in your line?” 

“None to speak of.” 

“Let me see, I didn’t just get what your business 
was.” 

“Didn’t you?” There was a silence of acute dis- 
comfort. Tice had maneuvered Memling into a comer. 
He could not get out without violent discourtesy. Mem- 
ling writhed at the invasion of his sacred right to have 
a business of his own and mind it, but it was hard for 
him to be brutally rude, so he sighed, 

“I am a painter.” 

“A painter! Is that so? No wonder you couldn’t 
guess what my title meant. Well, it must be a very nice 
kind of a business. I don’t know much about arrt, but 
I know what I like. I started to go through the Loover 
there in Paris, but gee whiz, it’s a regular Marathon, 
ain’t it? After I’d walked about ten blocks, I was blind 
and stiff-necked and spavined, and hollerin’ for a guide 
to lead me to the nearest door. Some very nice work 
there, though — yep, some right classy stuff. Sorry I 
missed the Monna Lizzie. Somebody stole her before I 
got there. I must say, I don’t hanker much after the 
old masters. The paint looks so tired. We got some 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

fine frescoes and things out in our State Capitol. Ever 
see it? But you said you’d never been to Sent 
Paul.” 

“Yes. No!” 

“Just what is your line?” 

“I haven’t any.” 

“I mean, do you go in for landscapes or portraits, or 
just fancy pictures?” 

“Just fancy pictures, I imagine.” 

“Ever do any advertising work?” 

“Not yet.” 

“There’s the field for an up-to-date artist. Some of 
those fellows get big immense prices for clothing ads 
and breakfast food pictures. High as a couple of hun- 
dred dollars.” 

Nellie broke in wrathfully: “Mr. Memling wouldn’t 
look at anything less than a coupla thousand, would you, 
Doik.?” 

“Well, I might look at it.” 

Tice was overwhelmed; “You must turn out some 
mighty smooth stuff.” He took off his hat and mopped 
the inner band. 

“He’s got a picture hanging in the Salong de I’Otong 
now,” said Nellie. 

“You don’t say so! He must be some painter!” 

“The French gov’ment is trying to buy it off him now 
for the Looksongboig gallery.” 

“You don’t tell me!” said Tice, “I wish I could see 
some of it. Got any samples with you?” 

“You’ve got one picture in your stateroom, haven’t 
you, Doik.^^” 

“The nymph — oh, yes, but Mr. Tice wouldn’t be in- 
terested in her.” 


328 


The Tenacious Customer 


“Wouldn’t I, though? I’d give a lot to see it. Maybe 
— well, I wish I could get a peek at it. I like nymphs.” 

“Maybe — some day,” said Memling wearily. Tice 
lingered uncomfortably, then rose and stumbled on. His 
backward bow was marked by a new homage. When he 
was out of hearing, Nellie began to bubble with a new idea. 

“I tell you what, Doik. That bean-moichant’s gotta 
lotta dough. Like as not, if we woiked him, you could 
get a job painting his portrait.” 

“A portrait of a baked bean?” 

“What’s the diff, so long as he comes across with the 
price. Show him the sun-boint nymph and that’ll clinch 
it.” 

“He’ll fall dead at the sight of a nude.” 

“You can’t tell. You’ll have to go pretty far west 
before you find a man that’s impoivious to that kind of 
art. Go on, let me show it to him.” 

“Anything you say,” yawned Memling, “I’m too sleepy 
to care.” 

Memling had packed the other paintings in cases con- 
signed to the hold, but the Sun-burnt Nymph he was 
afraid to trust below hatches. He wanted this picture 
where he could gloat over it. He kept it in his cabin. 

And there one morning Mr. Tice visited him for a 
sight of the masterpiece. Memling explained the idea. 
Mr. Tice breathed rather hard when the canvas flashed 
upon him, but it was a pleasurable excitement. 

“It’s great,” he said after a long stare. “It’s sure 
nifty ; it’s the goods. It would be grand in a lithograph 
or one of those three-color halftones. I been looking for 
a genuine work of classy art that would do for a kind 
of a trade-mark. You remember how those soap people 
used that ‘Bubbles’ picture? If I had something like 
329 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

that, I could give away a large size copy of it without 
printing on it for so many coupons. It’s a nood, but 
it’s decent, and those rocks take the place of clothes. 
I guess the women would stand for it. I’ve noticed you 
can’t shock the women. I could use a small plate of 
it on the cans, too. And I could use it in the ads some- 
thing like this : ‘I wish I had a can of Tice’s non-borated 
beans,’ — or — ‘In the primeval times they lived on roots 
and raw fish, nowadays we have Tice’s enticing beans’ — 
our copy man could think up just the thing.” 

Memling stared at him with eyes full of wrath at the 
sacrilege. He was a priest listening to blasphemy. He 
wanted to hurl Tice from the stateroom, but, as usual, 
when his wrath fiamed fiercest, his language was most 
cool: 

“My dear Mr. Tice,” he murmured, “you haven’t got 
money enough to buy this work for any such purpose.” 

He could not have touched Tice’s pride on a quicker 
nerve. 

“Not money enough.'^” Tice roared. “I guess you 
don’t realize how many cans of beans I sell in a year. 
I got money enough to buy the Statue of Liberty and 
put a can of beans in place of her torch.” 

“Well, go get her if she’s on the market,” said 
Memling. “This painting isn’t.” And he put it away 
as if the very look of Tice profaned it. 

The men separated, Tice full of rage at defeat, and 
Memling fuming at his impudence. Nellie was more 
furious still. But it was like Memling to retreat from 
any position in which anybody agreed with him fervidly. 

The more Nellie raged at Tice’s presumption, the 
more Memling began to believe that there might be some- 
thing to say in his favor. 


330 


The Tenacious Customer 


“Of course, in a way,” he pondered aloud, “if an 
artist or an author has done good work, the more widely 
it is published, the better. If the painting were hung 
in a private gallery, a dozen people might see it in six 
months. If it were hung in the Metropolitan Art Museum, 
a few hundred would glance at it every day. If it were 
used for an advertisement, millions would see it again and 
again. Copies of it would be framed and hung up in 
thousands of homes. It would be doing a great work 
for the cause of art. It would be educating 

“Good night, noisse,” said Nellie. “When you begin 
that education stuff, it’s all over but the last act. Good- 
by, Miss Nymph.” 

“What do you mean by that.?” 

“I mean that you’ve decided to sell my bath room 
portrait to that bean moichant.” 

Memling sighed: “It’s an artist’s fate to sell his 
children, Nellie. Writers may have shelves full of their 
own works without diminishing their prosperity, but the 
poor painter must send his dream-waifs out into the 
world.” 

“Don’t pull out that sob-stop, Doik. You’ll have me 
boo-hooin’ in a minute. Speak up like a man and say, 
‘Nellie, we’ve got a chance to sell sumpum that belongs 
to somebody else, so I don’t see how we can refuse.’ ” 

Memling grinned sheepishly: “All right, Nellie, con- 
sider it said. But how much are we going to get for it.? 
Since we’re selling stolen goods, we deserve a high price.” 

“Well, I hate to copy your methods, but I really 
believe we’re doing a noble bit this time. Anything that 
hoits Strubel is a voituous deed, and it’s soitainly good 
woik to take money away from anybody who’s got as little 
right to it as that bean-butcher.” 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 


CHAPTER LXIV 
A CONFIDENTIAL AUCTIONEER 
ITH this campaign agreed upon, they did not, of 



course, approach Tice with a request to reopen 


his offer. They pretended to have forgotten the incident 
altogether. And, of course, as resolute a cannery-king 
as Tice declined to accept the first rebuff. The next day 
he was perched on Memling’s steamer chair again, saying: 

“Mr. Memling, I’m a man of few words. I’ll take 
that painting off your hands for five hundred dollars.” 

“Mr. Tice,” Memling echoed, “I’m a man of fewer 
words. You will not.” 

Tice thought a while and ventured: 

“Six hundred, then.” 

“Six hundred, never.” 

Several waves had flopped against the ship’s side be- 
fore Tice came in with a tidal wave: 

“What would you say to a thousand.?” 

“Nothing at all.” 

“Good Lord, I could get five first-class illustrations 
for that.” 

“Why don’t you? I’m sure this nymph wouldn’t be 
of the slightest use to you.” 

“I guess I’m the best judge of the bean-booming 
business.” 

“Perhaps. But if you don’t mind I’ll take a little 
nap. This sea-air, you know.” 

The hand he put up to mask his outrageous yawn 


332 


A Confidential Auctioneer 

fell at his side, his eyelids drooped and his breathing was 
slow and shallow. 

Tice turned to Nellie: “Can’t you use your infloo- 
ence?” 

Nellie said: “Shh! Let the poor fella sleep. I’ll 
take a toin round the deck with you.” And she tiptoed 
away with Tice at heel. Memling, lifting one eyelid to 
glance after them, smiled and said to himself, “He’s 
putty in Nellie’s hands,” and felt so sure of her that he 
really fell asleep. 

“The trouble with these artists,” Nellie began, “is that 
they don’t know the value of money. He told me he 
wouldn’t take ten thou, for that.” 

“Ten thousand dollars !” howled Tice as they breasted 
the gale on the forward turn. 

“It isn’t woith it to you, I know,” said Nellie, pur- 
posely keeping out of step with him so that his incessant 
efforts to get back into step with her might jiggle his 
brain. “Artists are always picking the wrong woik for 
their best. Now, I don’t think the Nymph is a patch on 
the Peasant Goil.” 

Tice brightened up: “The Peasant Girl! Now, 
maybe she’d go better with beans. Maybe I’d better buy 
the Peasant Girl.” 

“Oh, but she’s hanging in the Salong. See, here she 
is in the catalog. I happened to be looking it over this 
forenoon.” 

Tice looked and saw her duly registered at the hotel 
of canvases. He grew zealous for her. 

“Now, I might pay a higher price with the Salong 
tag on her. It would be a better advertisement. I guess 
I’ll take her.” 

“Unfortunately,” said Nellie, “the French gov’ment 

333 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

has beat you to her. The President of France has offered 
fifteen thousand dollars for her.” 

“You don’t tell me!” 

“He wants to hang it in the White House, or the 
Maisong Blong, as they call it over there.” 

“Is that possible.? He’s some painter, ain’t he.?” 

“He’s some and then some.” 

“Too bad I missed that one.” 

“Too bad. I don’t suppose it would be a good adver- 
tisement to say that this Nymph is by the author of the 
famous shay-doiver now hanging in the French President’s 
lib’ary.” 

“That’s so! Well, I might go as high as five thou- 
sand for it. It’s an awful wrench, but I might make it.” 

“It wouldn’t do you any good. I’m not sure he’d 
even let it go for ten thousand. Mr. What-you-may-call- 
him, the pickle-prince offered him six thousand and Doik 
just laughed. Pierpont Morgan offered him eight thou- 
sand, five hundred, and only got insulted.” 

Tice was figuring up how many beans it would take 
to pay for the painting at fifteen cents a can retail, and 
three thousand, seven hundred and thirty-nine beans in 
an average can by actual count. The total appalled him. 
It amounted to a whole sky-full of beans — a Beany- Way 
across the heavens. But he was a stubborn man once he 
set hold of an idea. 

Nellie walked him round the deck till his tongue was 
hanging out, and finally she led him up to where Dirk 
was lying fast asleep. She spoke to Memling several times 
before he looked up drowsily: 

“Well, Doik,” said Nellie, “I couldn’t convince Mr. 
Tice that he didn’t want that picture. I never saw a 
man with such detoimination. No wonder he’s the biggest 

334 ) 


Home Again 

bean-booster in Nebraska — or wherever it is. He’s offer- 
ing you ten thousand now.” 

Memling frowned reprovingly: “I don’t see how a 
man can succeed in business who is so extravagant.” 

“I can afford it, I guess,” growled Tice. 

Finally, Memling yielded. Tice asked only one thing, 
a photograph of his cheque to use in the advertisements. • 
He agreed to furnish the camera. When he went to get 
it, Nellie said: 

“We’d better have an extra copy of that snapshot 
and get it framed. Heaven knows the photograph will 
be all we’ll have to remember it by!” 

“I wonder what we’ll tell Strubel,” said Memling. 

“You got time to think up a good story. And it’ll 
have to be a boid to get past Strubie.” 


CHAPTER LXV 
HOME AGAIN 

T he day after he landed, Memling invited Strubel 
to the old studio, which he had reopened. The 
thirty canvases, all but two, were unpacked and aligned 
along the walls. Strubel stared at them incredulously. 

“There they are,” said Memling. “They came through 
the customs as if they had skids on them.” 

“I see a lot of chromos; and they’re all rotten.” 
“Thank you, Strubie,” said Memling, “I was dreading 
this moment. I was afraid you might admire my work. 
That would have been a blow to all my hopes. Now I 
know it’s good art — you don’t like it.” 

335 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk Memling 

Strubel frowned: “Pm not int’rested in your chokes. 
Pm int’rested in the pictures that De Ferfank gave you.” 

“There they are,” said Memling, “under the rose. All 
that is needed now in the application of a bottle or two 
of my secret restorer.” 

“Veil, get bissy!” said Strubel, and hurried away. 

A few days later he was there again, and now the 
canvases were aglow with the work of many distinguished 
artists, each in his own sphere, with his own style. 
Strubel greeted them with joy, welcomed them to the city. 
His hands clasped and rolled together. 

“T’irty mesterpieces, and feefteen per cent saved on 
the toody,” he chortled. “Now, all ve gotta do is sell 
’em.” 

“That should be easy for one of your ” Memling 

began graciously; then he paused, for Strubel was count- 
ing the pictures. He shook his fat forefinger at each 
of them in turn, then paused, bewildered, and counted 
again. 

“I only make it tventy-eight, Memlink. Count ’em 
yourselluf !” 

“I could never hope to count better than you, Strubel. 
There are only twenty-eight there.” 

“But De Ferfank wrote me he gave you t-t-t’irty !” he 
stammered. 

“So he did. One of them is detained in the Salon.” 

He explained the situation to Strubel who threatened 
to perish of apoplexy. He recovered eventually enough 
to demand: “But that leaves one still missing. Vere iss 
it.?” 

“I don’t know. Ask of the waves that wildly roar.” 

Strubel, growing frantic, turned to Nellie: 

“Vere iss it.?” 


336 


Home Again 


“You can soich me. It’s on the ocean somewheres.” 

“The ocean .f* The ocean!” 

“Yes,” Memling spoke with eager haste. “You see, 
I brought one of the paintings over in my stateroom. 
Some friends wanted to see it, so I took it up on deck 
where the light was brighter. One of the passengers 
carried it to the rail to see better. Just then a big gust 
of wind came along and blew a dozen steamer-caps over- 
board. The painting went with them. I was going to 
leap overboard for it, but I was forcibly restrained.” 

Strubel went to the divan like an avalanche. When 
he grew calmer, he became more himself; he stormed: 

“I don’t believe it! It is a lie!” 

Memling smiled: “It’s a good one though, isn’t it.?” 

Strubel looked like all the Herods: “You bring me 
that paintink or I — I put you in chail for life! I sue 
you for demaches !” 

Memling beamed on him patiently: “And will you 
tell the court the whole story of the transaction, the 
smuggling and all that? Will you let them confiscate 
the twenty-nine? Be reasonable, Strubie. The Tonty is 
gone forever. Make the best of it.” 

“You — ^you — oh, you ” Strubel sputtered, his own 

wrath throttling him, and his brain aching for a terrible 
enough word. 

“I admit all you’d like to say,” said Memling, “but 
I’ve done my best. I brought you over twenty-nine- 
thirtieths of my cargo. Circumstances that were more 
powerful than I have taken the Tonty off the market. 
But it is all for the best. The Tonty was very bad. It 
would have done you no credit, Strubie.” 

Strubel sat glaring. Suddenly his eyes lighted up. 

“I vas to pay you zwolf-t’ousant dollars for your 

337 


The Amiable Crimes of Dirk 3Iemling 

share. The Tonty is vort fiinfzehn-t’ousant. Give me 
tree-t’ousant dollars and I call it sqvare.” 

Memling looked at Nellie: ‘‘He’s funny, isn’t he, 
Nellie? Wouldn’t he be great in musical comedy? Me 
give you three thousand dollars, Strubie? Hasn’t he a 
wonderful imagination, Nellie 

“He’ll be trying to squeeze blood from a toinip next,” 
said Nellie. 

Strubel had to make the best of it. “I deserve it,” 
he said, “for trusting you. My only consolation is I 
don’t pay you your share.” 

“I shouldn’t expect it,” said Memling, with a prompt- 
ness that startled Strubel. 

Strubel wandered away like a somnambulist after 
seeing his twenty-eight masterpieces carried from the 
studio to his own building. He wondered what Memling’s 
game was. He wondered how Memling planned to keep 
from starving. 

Memling and Nellie danced a turkey-trot of triumph 
after he had gone. They had robbed a thief, spoiled the 
spoiler and they had Mr. Tice’s big cheque in the bank. 

The bell rang. A messenger boy brought a letter 
from a New York hotel. Memling signed the book, tipped 
the boy and opened the letter. He read, gulped, sighed, 
handed the letter mutely to Nellie. It was from Tice : 

Dear Mr. Memling: On consulting with my partner, 
who met me at the pier, I find that he is unwilling to O. K. 
my purchase of your painting. Have, therefore, been com- 
pelled to telegraph to Saint Paul to stop payment on the 
check. Am sending the painting to you this afternoon, charges 
prepaid. 

Regretting any inconvenience this may have caused you. 
Yours truly, J, G. Tice. 

338 


Home Again 

Nellie and Memling looked at each other. Their looks 
were a funeral march. 

“The ” Nellie began. 

“Don’t waste breath on him,” said Memling. 

“But can’t you sue him or sumpum.?” 

“Like Strubie, the further I can keep from the court- 
house, the comfortabler I’ll be.” 

“Take the picture to Strubel and tell him you iust 
found it.” 

“And rub out the sun-burnt nymph 

“Oh, no ! you couldn’t do that. But we haven’t got 
a cent.” 

“But we have each other. And we’ve had our trip to 
Paris. And I’ve learned what a great painter I am.” 

“But we haven’t got a cent.” 

“Don’t worry, Satan finds some mischief still ” 


( 1 ) 


THE END 



I 


V 








